Have You Played… Halo: Combat Evolved?

Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day, perhaps for all time.

WHAT. How have we gone so long without mentioning Halo in ‘Have You Played’? Maybe because it’s such an obvious choice, a monster of both profit and influence. Every shooter since has something to owe Halo, for better or worse. Microsoft’s console expedition certainly has something to owe it, not that we care.

Some folks lament its impact on the genre, but I don’t mind. I adore Halo for the feeling of gunplay that Bungie still manage to pull off today (albeit with less novelty). Pop pop pop, chuck a grenade, take cover, reload, race across the opening, dive in a car, run over the aliens, dive out of the car, swap weapons with a gun on the floor, spray bullets everywhere, and aaaaghhhhhh that music.

You may hate that for years we were only allowed to hold two guns at a time, but when they put my body on the longboat and push it out to sea, I want everyone to smell the burning plastic of the Halo box that’s going up in flames with me.