Halo

There are three juggernauts of console FPS games. Most recently, there is Call of Duty: Modern Warfare with its meshing of hyper-realism and dramatization gameplay that has garnered, quite possibly, the most profitable gaming franchise ever (I'm sure there is data somewhere). Another is the original, Goldeneye 007, which made console FPS games relevant amid the popularity of Unreal, Quake, and Doom. The other juggernaut would most certainly be Halo, entering popular lore on Microsoft's debut system. In one simple move, this game moved the genre into the contemporary age by emphasizing fluid versatility. The combination of very intelligent technical and aesthetic choices sum up to an enthralling video gaming experience.

I think much of the game's attraction came from its far-fetched ideas, the ring world, the Covenant and the eccentric personality, 343 Guilty Spark. There is a simplicity to the game's story that leaves open a field of mystery that a player can explore through the act of playing the game (as opposed to watching it in a cutscene). This drive of discovery propelled the luster of Halo, from the rolling hills and towering cliffs to the lush island in the level 'The Silent Cartographer.' There was enough mystery to make this simple story worthy of progressing through. Speaking of 'The Silent Cartographer,' Bungie does an excellent job in level design to combine many aspects of spatial environments to help support its versatile style; we start out on foot in a heated battle with a Covenant troop, then take the Warthog and engage in smaller troops throughout the island, then you return on foot to traverse the hilly center, engaging in several skirmishes, them you make your way into the interior of the island fighting the Covenant in geometrically active rooms that are far more intricate than the outside landscape.

There is this sort of eerie perfection to the architecture of Halo. Symmetry dominates the aesthetic choices of many of the effigies we explore, like the library and the control room. Some critics have condone such a lack in diverse interiors, but while it may not be the most exciting construction of a world, this perfection stands in contrasts to the reason for Halo's existence as well as the unpredictable and grotesque flood, a parasite among perfection. They are a mechanism for both the humans and the Covenant's folly, terrorizing both and morphing each group into its image (a haunting religious metaphor among a faint religious theme in this game).

Halo's ferociousness is experienced through its many larger battle set pieces. What the game achieves is an open-ended element of FPS gameplay that encourages creativity rather than just guns blazing. Think about big FPS games before this: Goldeneye, Doom, Quake, Perfect Dark, and even Half-Life. No other FPS sought to pit players in a scenario of large landscapes and many enemies, enemies that act differently yet still retain a certain cohesion. The AI was and, to an extent, still is, one of the finest in any game. Without such intelligence, these larger battles could not be experienced with raw emotion, without an uncanny feel of unconvincing stage direction. Again, this is a fluidity Bungie mastered very early on in console FPS aesthetics.

After the game is played, the Gregorian chants always seem to echo in every player's mind. Its infectious quality is hinged upon the mysteriousness the game allows by not going to far in explanation but reserving the allowance for exploration. By the end of the game, there is still a thirst for discovering what Halo is, a brilliant element to lead into a fine sequel. Yet, Halo is a paramount game of both aesthetics and technical choices (most importantly its streamlined controls). It was not afraid to not only go big, very big, but also very small. Its ambition lies in it versatility, one that helps retain its freshness after all these years and has made a genuine blueprint of not only what an FPS game should be like, but also what a thematically simple yet emotionally powerful game should be like.