Game 43: Night Trap

Night Trap was a controversial full-motion video game released on a variety of CD-based systems in the early 90's. It serves as a great reminder to people who wish to defend against video game censorship in the United States as the game's leading opponents: Joe Lieberman and Herb Kohl, are still serving in the Senate 15 years later. Night Trap is pretty timid compared to some games nowadays and mostly attracted attention because it used real actors (if you could call them that) in pajamas and had a vampire blood sucking scene. There have undoubtedly been hundreds of scenes of vampires sucking the blood of a young woman out in film and even on TV over the years, but Night Trap gets targeted because why?

Anyways, a little about my experience with the game. I actually beat Night Trap a few years ago, it was an epic moment in my video game career and a story I'll be able to retell for ages. I first played it when it was initially released on the Sega CD back in 1992. Even then I realized how bad this game was, the control is simply horrid and the full motion video is anything but that. My friend and I played it because we were young and intrigued about the notion of the possibility of breasts in a video game. Of course, there isn't any nudity but we liked to think that if we beat the game, we would be duly rewarded. If you consider the opportunity to kill Dana Plato a great reward though, well, you will love this game. Now on to the first hour review of Night Trap for the PC!

(minutes are in bold)
00 - Well, the game starts off right away, I don't even have to press Start! The developer and publisher's logo flash by, and then we get to see the Night Trap logo, with a bloody letter A! An RV pulls up and I get a binoculars' eye view of a house. We cut to what I presume is inside the RV, a SWAT-like team of people are moving around inside, preparing for a mission of sorts.
01 - But they're not SWAT, they're SCAT. I don't think I could have possibly thought of a worse squad acronym. A man named Simms starts talking to me about this slumber party that's about to go down. Five teenage girls are going to a mall friend's house for some fun, but this isn't any normal random set of people, pretty girls have disappeared from here before! My job is to protect the five girls. Somehow SCAT already snuck someone into the house and discovered a robust security system with cameras and traps in every room (including the bathroom) and they spliced the cable so we could also control their security. Right now the trap's access code is simply set to Blue, but anyone could change it at anytime, so I have to pay attention. They could also cut the spliced cable.

02 - Man, this is a lot to worry about. Luckily I'll have a woman on the inside, Kelly, code named in the real world as Dana Plato, the star of Diff'rent Strokes! Simms yells at me for another moment, then I say I'm ready to go and the game really begins.

03 - So I'm looking at a view of the girls climbing out of their station wagon and they begin to unpack. They joke around in hilarious fashion and then Dana Plato, I mean Kelly, approaches the camera and asks if we're ready to go. The family's daughter, Sarah, comes walking down the stairs and says she's surprised they came.
04 - The parents also come out of the house and Sarah introduces everyone, the dad is all creepy like and even kissed Kelly's hand. One of the girl's brought her little brother, Danny. That just seems odd. Through all of this the game is beeping.

05 - I should explain the UI, on the top half of the screen we have the full motion video area, where we get to see the grainy, low-res hotties in action. On the bottom half we have what looks like a view of the house and buttons for the various cameras around the building. It also shows my current access code, and some numbers that say Possible (15) and Captured (0). Every time the game beeps the Possible goes up by one.

07 - Umm... "Weird Eddie" just approached the girls, "he's really cute" one of them exclaims. Danny waves like a dork. They enter the house, but I can see some black-clad dudes on the roof! I click the Trap button but it does nothing. The front lawn is just empty. Guess I'll head inside.
09 - Kelly breaks the fourth wall again and tells me to check out the house. I have to either follow these guys around or look for the baddies. They're hanging out in the kitchen now, unloading their goods.

10 - Woah, I just entered the bedroom and some guy was creeping around. It was playing some "rock" music and I tried to trap him but nothing happened.

11 - Oh man, I just missed out on a trap! A ninja vampire was in the bedroom again and the little bar starting flashing red, but I had already clicked Trap and missed my chance. Darn. 24 Possible, 0 Captured.
13 - Two guys just went into a secret doorway, I don't know how to follow them! The parents are outside talking about leaving, "what could possibly go wrong?" the father asks. Oh, just wait.

14 - I keep entering rooms right when a vampire is leaving. Lame. Oh, the girls are having a dance party in the living room now! Think I'll watch that for a bit.

16 - Holy crap. I just witnessed quite possibly the greatest scene in a video game ever. Someone puts on a song, and it turns out to be the Night Trap song! Seriously. "blah blah blah blah NIGHT TRAP!" That's basically how it went. One of the girls had a tennis racket and was strumming it like a guitar and then using it as a microphone. All of a sudden all the girls stand up and start rocking out. Amazing!
17 - But of course the whole time I was missing out on captures, whoops.

18 - NOOOO! I just had my first capture in the bag but someone changed the code! I don't know what it is now!

19 - Oh snaps, I lost. Simms comes up and tells me the house is being overrun, he's probably right! Time to start again.
20 - All right! This time I don't waste any time watching Simms talk to me and just get right to the house by pressing Enter. That seems to have worked because right away in Hall 1 two ninjas appear and since I know the code is blue, I take them out right away. A door opens up and then a wall shoves them outside. Rocking!

21 - Wow, I'm on a roll! I've now captured 5 out of a possible 7. The daughter, Sarah, was in the bathroom freshening up and some nasties followed her in there (unknown to her). I took them out with a rotating wall and some cleverly placed holes in the floor. Awesome Blossom!

23 - There are trapdoors all over this house, took out another two vampires. And another.
24 - The mom just came out from behind a bookcase, something fishy is going on here.

25 - The game has finally reached the point where the girls are unloading the station wagon. Geez, that seems a little lame that the opening video literally cuts into the game like that.

27 - Owned, the sliding staircase just dumped two enemies to the underworld. LOL, the bed just flipped up to toss one outside. This game is crazy.
28 - The game just pulled the same wall pushing two outside again. And since it was all full motion video, it was the exact same scene. I've captured 13 of 17. Not bad if I do say so myself.

30 - Took out some more in the bathroom. Some of these guys have giant weapon like things that look like they're for grabbing on to people's necks with (and then sucking their blood!).

31 - I come across the mom and dad in the kitchen, sounds like the mom is suspicious of Kelly. Not good for SCAT!
33 - Oh no, someone changed the code! When did they do it? I try changing it to Green and I immediately get an opportunity to try that out, doesn't work. Crap.

34 - Haha, the girls are about the sing the Night Trap song. I'd better not watch this time. Well, the code isn't Orange either. This sucks.

35 - What the frak? One of my SCAT buddies just burst into the house. Odd. I'm doing a lot worse now, 18 out of 34. And I still haven't confirmed the new access code.
37 - Ugh, not Purple either. Little Danny just found one of the secret doors and he went in, and two vampires followed! But I couldn't take them out! Finally, it's Red! Just don't change again anytime soon, please.

39 - Oh sucka! I just overheard the cousins talking about changing the code to Yellow. I rule.

40 - And yellow works immediately, whoopee! The girls have gone upstairs after their little dance-off. Sarah is showing them their rooms.
41 - Someone just pulled up in another station wagon, it's some black guy wearing a crazy Hawaiian outfit, but he's with SCAT! I think he's going to try something... "Give them the old Jamaican number." I am frightened for my life.

42 - Holy crap, Dana Plato in a sports bra! My dream has come true. One of the girls finds some crazy sex-toy thing in the closet, Sarah says her dad collects weird things. Uh huh.

44 - Well, the SCAT guy was inside talking to the cousins, but I didn't pay attention to what they were doing. Instead I found the craziest thing yet (besides the song). Some guy was hoisted up by his ankles in a closet and the vampires hooked some oxygen tank up to his neck and started sucking the blood out! Crazy!
45 - Oh no, Danny saw them do it! And now little Danny is getting chased! I do manage to take out one though.

47 - Woah, I just saw the famous bathroom scene that all the donkeys in Washington got upset about. One of the girls was fixing her hair in the bathroom while one of the vampires was hiding in the shower. She saw him and opened it up, thinking it was one of the other girls playing a trick on her, but then another came out, and another wielding their giant neck weapon! She starts fighting them off and I kill one, then she runs to the bedroom and out the window. Crazy!

49 - Heh, one of the cousins was just hitting on Kelly, but then Danny runs into the living room saying "they're after me!" Maybe they'll believe him and they can get the heck out! Please insert disc 2... fine, give me a minute.
50 - Oh no, my game froze! Crap... guess I'll replay the beginning for another 10 minutes. That blows.

51 - Okay, now the game is on a fritz, it froze again basically. LAME. Well, just the mouse actually, I can still use the number keys to switch cameras and the Enter button to trap. Might as well give it a try. (turns out later on it was actually my mouse that ran out of batteries, sorry to blame it on you Night Trap!)

55 - Using the keyboard's number pad is actually really easy to use. Quite a good alternative to the mouse.
58 - Just playing the game... 16 of 25 captured. Just flung a guy off the roof, only one I haven't seen yet.

60 - I'm proud of myself, I correctly figured out when the guys turned the access code to Red. But that's all there is to the first hour of Night Trap! Wow! Not as bad as I remembered.

Time for some scores out of 10.
Story: 3
Well, if you've read the minute by minute of this game, you'll know that Night Trap's story is pretty much crap. Okay, it's total crap. But it is redeemed by that amazing song that had me entranced for a few minutes. I'm pretty sure this game was intentionally written as a vampire B-movie, but that doesn't mean it gets a break from me. The acting is atrocious but the biggest problem with the story is the gameplay. There might actually be some gems of writing hidden within this game but you'd never know because you have to constantly jump from room to room, causing you to miss 90% of the dialogue. But maybe that's a good thing.

Graphics and Sound: 6
I played the PC version of Night Trap which benefits from higher resolution video, which is a definite plus. The security camera picture actually looks pretty good and it is always clear when the black clad bad guys are creeping around. What also helps is the soundtrack, the only noticeable piece was the vampire sneaking music but it helped so much when zipping from screen to screen. That Night Trap song was also pretty awesome. Finally, the user interface was also completely revamped from the Sega CD version but I'm not sure if it's actually any better.

Gameplay: 6
The core gameplay of Night Trap is really just you switching from camera to camera as fast as possible to find bad guys running around the house and then trap them. Trapping them doesn't take much skill, just press the button at the right time, but it's more about looking at the right camera at the right time. It's a little frustrating to suddenly find the security code has been changed, but I suppose this game has quite a bit of trial and error behind it, and I quickly figured out the correct time of the first code change. Night Trap's gameplay works off a simple concept, but it is executed pretty well.

Fun Factor: 8
I've always had fun playing Night Trap, and my latest foray into the game's first hour was no exception. The game is flawed in many ways, but once you get a hang of the gameplay and can get past the cheese factor, it is really fun. Trapping bad guys can actually be laugh out loud funny but most of the enjoyment comes from the bad acting and of course, the epic song and dance sequence. It's great to see a game that doesn't take itself too seriously, the developers weren't trying to make the perfect game, the premise is too flawed to begin with to achieve that. They did, however, make a game that is kind of like a scary movie, the more people you have around to watch it, the better it gets.

Minutes to Action: 3

Overall: 7
Is it wrong for me to say that I actually enjoyed playing the first hour of Night Trap? I think this game has gotten a tremendously bad rap from certain comedy video game reviewers and the pretty crappy gameplay of some console versions. My experience from playing the first hour does not point to this game being one of the worst of all time. It may have been an awful idea with a cast of D-list actors, but it is so campy and insane that I had fun. It's not a great game, it is though decent and such an iconic moment in video game history that if you ever get a chance to play Night Trap, do it.

The Sega CD user interface.
And the end of my innocence.

Game 39: Another World

Another World (Out of this World) is a cinematic platformer released on just about every system back in 1991. Now the phrase, "cinematic platformer" gives me shivers because of its sheer potential of awfulness. When I hear those words I think of terrible gameplay and ugly, "realistic" looking graphics. The games are typically rotoscoped to give them a unique graphical style, which usually doesn't bother me, it's more the style of gameplay that makes me experience nasty flashes of nostalgia. If you've ever played the original Prince of Persia games, you'll know what I'm talking about.

Another World is known as Out of this World in the United States. Much like Indigo Prophecy/Fahrenheit, the game is renamed for some stupid reason that leaves people confused and wondering whether the stone is the sorcerer's or the philosopher's. Either way, the game supposedly influenced Fumito Ueda, who went on to create Ico and Shadow of the Colossus. So at least this game was good for something, but let's check out the first hour of Out of this World to see if it can properly defend itself and (in my opinion) the thankfully lacking genre known as the cinematic platformer.

I'll be playing the 15th Anniversary Edition for the PC released in 2006. The game features higher resolution graphics and more detailed backgrounds.

(minutes are in bold)
00 - I select New Game and the first hour of Another World begins. We're looking at a lonely building under the night sky. Suddenly a car screeches to a halt in front of it. A man gets out of the vehicle and enters the building. An elevator door opens and our orange haired driver steps out.
01 - He types in a code on a keypad and gets scanned. All his vitals match and the computer types out, "Good evening professor." It even knows what car I drove here from the key I'm holding.

02 - The professor is sitting at a workstation now and enters CDOS. He types in the command, "Run Project 23."

03 - He's running a particle acceleration experiment.
04 - Once that is complete he starts a practical trial, pops a soda and watches the fireworks. Literally! A storm outside shot a bolt of lightning into the cyclotron, opening up a portal on the professor! Him and his entire desk is gone!

06 - Woah, the professor landed in a deep pool of water and it was almost too late before I realized I had to swim him up and out of the water! At the last moment it looked like tentacles were reaching out to me. As I crawl out of the pool, a strange creature runs away.

07 - Well, for better or worse I now have total control. I walk right, kicking slugs along the way. One falls on me and stings me! I fall dead! Wow, that was fast!
08 - I crawl out of the pool again... a moment later I'm dead from another slug!

09 - Well what the frak? (Battlestar Galactica is back by the way!) The giant monster that was watching me climb out of the pool just pounced on me and killed me! How was I supposed to fend that guy off?

10 - Stupid slugs.

11 - Well, I figured out how to run so this time I run from the monster, but when I enter that screen again I immediately get killed. This is going to take a lot of trial and error I believe. Man, I wish I could just run over these slugs.
12 - Okay, the monster follows me from screen to screen, looks like I'll have to run and jump over the slugs and get back to the pool? No idea.

13 - Ugh, I got away and the monster tripped, so I became lazy and stopped. Bad idea, I was dead a moment later.

15 - WOW! Epic! I ran all the way to the left from the monster, jumped off a cliff, swung from a vine to the other side of the brute, ran all the way back to the right, and then the beast got blown away by some guys cloaked in black! Then they shot at me! Now I'm hanging in a tiny cage with some ugly looking dude.
16 - I actually have control so I start swinging the cage back and forth using my momentum. Ha, owned! We land the cage on a guard's head and take off running.

18 - Whoops, I got shot. Now I have to do the cage sequence again. This time I notice that the guard dropped his gun and I grab it. Awesome!

19 - Ugh, I got shot in the back. No idea where that guard came from. Cage sequence again.

21 - You can make a shield with your gun. And that's exactly what an enemy just did. This is tough!
23 - I finally make it past the shooting sequence and we hop on a lift and head down... Oh, by the way, the guy who I was in the cage with is chilling out with me. Luckily I can't shoot him!

25 - Dang, I get shot. This time I head up on the lift, nope. Dead end. We head all the way to the bottom of the lift and I shoot a guard in the back. Nice. There's some flashy thing on the wall so I shoot it, I think it shorted something out.

27 - Man, this game is brutal with replaying sequences!

28 - Odd, I just fell down a hole and now I'm rolling around. Geez, I keep dying brutal deaths in here, nasty! Falling too far isn't a big deal for most video game heroes! I think I keep getting killed by water rushing down on me. This is really weird.
31 - Well, I finally made it out and into some force field room. As I enter the force field my hair stands on end and I get zapped! I didn't die though so it must have triggered something...

32 - As I head outside and kill a guard, my buddy runs by in the foreground and is being chased by three guards! Cool! Hahaha! I just got impaled by a spike when I failed to jump a ledge!

34 - I've been impaled two more times... I am able to jump down to a ledge further down but I have no where to go. Hmm...

37 - This is getting really annoying. I wish I knew what that force field area did. The game keeps returning me right there after I die.
40 - Oh, I was supposed to shoot the wall with my powered up gun. Oh. Wow, the backgrounds in this cave are beautiful!

41 - As I head further right I can hear water running. Geez, it's like a waterfall in here! I try to walk on the platform, and well, that doesn't work.

42 - I head up some stairs out of the cave and am on the other side of that massive jump. All right! Well, another waterfall room. Doesn't look like I'm supposed to be going this way. Deeper into the cave I guess.

43 - Oh man... I'm in the room underneath the pool of water that the waterfall rushes into. I am so tempted to blow away the small piece of rock holding it all up. Okay, I'm going to do it. Haha, I died immediately. But it looks like I might have been able to run away?
45 - Well, you can run away, but I'm not doing a very good job at it. Honestly I don't even know why I would want to do this in the first place?

46 - Okay, that was funny. I made it over a jump and watched the water rush into the pit. Then I just stood there, all of a sudden the whole cave below me must have filled up because the water was rushing up right at me a moment later! Awesome!

50 - I'm starting to wonder if that water sequence was just a red herring as I found another part of the cave where it seems you might be able to proceed differently. But there are a bunch of rocks falling on my head and I keep getting squashed!

51 - I somehow time the rocks amazingly well only to get squished immediately on the next screen.
53 - Phew, I've made it past the falling rocks, but now there are many eating tentacle monsters trying to get me!

54 - Man, these guys are really bastards. You have to time all these lame jumps perfectly well and since this is a "cinematic platformer" you also have to deal with all the crappiness that goes with that!

57 - If I make it past the tentacles I just fall in the pits anyway. Grr...
58 - I'm going to have nightmares of these tentacle monsters eating me.

59 - Finally, I have made it to a room with no tentacles and no pits! Too bad it's empty and there's no where to go.

60 - Yeah, that's a great place to stop. In an empty room.

Now for some scores out of 10.
Story: 6
Another World's story was intentionally left vague, so I kind of have to wrap my own details around what I'm playing. Personally, if I got teleported to an alien world where I was getting shot at, chased around by giant man-eating beasts, and getting devoured by tentacle beings, I would be pretty freaked out. The guy in this game (Lester, can't actually figure that out from the game as far as I can tell) is holding his composure pretty well. I think the most interesting aspect about the game is not Lester being transported to "another world," but his immediate friendship with his fellow cage-mate. I wish the game would have paired us up together a little longer in its first hour, but it redeemed itself about half way through when I saw him running in the foreground. I was reminded that we're both unwelcome in this land and if we're going to get out, it's going to be together.

Graphics and Sound: 7
The 15th Anniversary Edition of Another World brings a remarkable graphical improvement over the game's original release. In my opinion, the game looks so much better and is even pretty passable as a 2D platformer. The backgrounds have evolved the most, and benefit greatly from the higher resolutions, but the characters are also a bit smoother. The animations haven't changed as far as I can tell though, but that's more of a gameplay issue, which I'll get to next. Another World is light on sound effects but the music I heard in its first hour was excellent.

Gameplay: 4
I guess the thing with cinematic platformers is that you either love them, hate them, or have never even imagined such an atrocity of a sub-genre. Because of the way the animations are recorded and rotoscoped, you can't take tiny little baby steps because the game has specific step lengths already programmed in. This is most frustrating when running and jumping, because you really have to plan your jumps far in advance and if you started your running animation at the wrong point, you will probably fail at your jump.

As you can tell, I'm not really fond of these types of games, and I was honestly starting to get into Another World. That is, until I realized the game was obsessed with trial and error and making me replay sequences over and over again. There are plenty of checkpoints, but they're generally placed directly before time-sucking scenes so you waste a lot of time just doing the same thing over and over again. I bet you could beat this game in less than an hour, probably far less than that, but first time gamers will be frustrated. I do think that if you're good at this game you'll have fun and blaze through it in a short afternoon.

Fun Factor: 6
Though I rip on Another World's gameplay pretty harshly, there are some incredibly awesome sequences that when you pull them off, you'll pump your fist in the air and come away with a big smile on your face. Of course, these all come after many attempts and lots of time trying to figure out exactly what to do. It is satisfying moving on from a level knowing you've figured out the game's behind-the-scenes puzzles, but it's not all fun and laughter.

Minutes to Action: 6

Overall: 6
In my opinion, Another World's first hour suffers most from the genre it was developed for. Cinematic platformers probably sound great on paper as you get realistic looking animations, but the gameplay usually suffers from being unnatural and just not fluid. I've personally never played one that I really enjoyed, but I think I might actually continue on with Another World. The story is intriguing enough and I think I can put up with the frustrating gameplay to finish it, I'm pretty sure the game isn't too long. I guess that's a good feeling to have when coming out of playing the first hour of a video game. Undoubtedly the most important. To have the will to finish it.

The game's creator, Eric Chahi, has a great site detailing Another World's development from start to finish. I highly recommend it.

Game 35: Homeworld

Homeworld is a 3D real-time strategy game released in 1999 on the PC, Mac, and Linux. It managed to garner a few Game of the Year awards in a pretty tough year of gaming which included Unreal Tournament, Alpha Centauri, Final Fantasy VIII, and the release of the Dreamcast, which of course means Soul Calibur. It wasn't an extremely strong year for the console world, so PC games did very well and Homeworld arrived at just the right time. The game is renowned for its engrossing storyline and cinematic graphical style. Not to mention a great implementation of real-time strategy in 3D space.

I usually take screenshots with Fraps for PC games but for whatever reason it didn't work for Homeworld. ZScreen to the rescue! This is my first time using the open source program and honestly it did a great job grabbing screens of this beautiful space game. Took me a while to find a working solution but ZScreen did the job just fine and worked for me immediately. Now let's get to the first hour review of Homeworld.

(minutes are in bold)
00 - Being entirely new to the 3D real-time strategy, I decide to try out the training first, and thus the first hour of Homeworld begins. A computerized female voice starts talking and introduces me to the controls. I'm looking at a funny looking orange spaceship. The right mouse button moves the camera. I swing it around for a bit.
01 - The game looks good but now that I know how to zoom in, Homeworld shows off an ugly side of blocky textures and polygons. Ah well. This ain't Sins of a Solar Empire.

02 - First up is building ships. Moving the mouse to the bottom of the screen reveals a hidden popup menu with some buttons to check out.

03 - Resources are measured in RU. Resource units I guess. Makes more sense than Gold.
05 - Following the game's instructions I build a resource ship, a research ship, and ten scouts. As I leave the build screen I can see my first scouts heading out from the mothership.

07 - The game has me zooming in and out on my various ships. Dragging multiple units in 3D is currently as easy as doing it in 2D. But of course, nothing hectic has happened yet.

08 - I instruct my resource collector to go Harvest, and the ship heads off with the camera following it to a nearby asteroid. Things are nice and smooth.
10 - I learn how to research next by using my research ship. This is all pretty typical RTS stuff, just done in space, and with spaceships.

12 - Movement is another story though. Now that I have three planes of space to work with, I have to use the Shift key to direct my ships along the vertical axis. It seems relatively intuitive though.

14 - Next up I bring up the Sensor Manager with the spacebar. The Sensor Manager is essentially a super zoomed out view of my current area. I can see my ships, and a red blinking dot signifying the enemy. Brown dots are harvesting points for resources.
17 - Wow, this is pretty cool stuff. I learn how to put my scouts into different formations. Watching them zoom around in 3D and real-time is pretty awesome. I send my scouts off to the enemy using the Sensor Manager. I bring the camera behind their Claw Formation.

20 - Nice, my first combat experience! My ships approach the stationary enemy and with a few clicks, start bombarding them with their little missiles!

22 - I give my scouts the order to dock back at the mothership, but the computer says that if I stick around, I might get some more combat. Why not?
29 - Well, seven minutes later and I'm still fighting my first battle! I don't know if this goes on forever so I think I'll get into the main game. Honestly, this has been pretty tough. It's hard to keep all the scouts grouped together and they don't make for very good fighters. The frigate I built was tough though and was able to take and deal a lot of damage. It is hard to keep everything on screen though when you have so much control.

30 - Now that training is done, I select Single Player and the game begins. Immediately it asks me to pick my fleet, either Kushan or Taiidan. I have no idea what these mean but both of them sound Japanese. Anyways, I select the default Kushan. I can customize the colors of the ships but that's a lot of work and not something I have time for. Clicking Start! sends me to a loading screen, and then the opening cutscene.

31 - Sweet, I really like this art style. It's almost exactly like Hotel Dusk, a point and click adventure for the Nintendo DS. All the objects are hand drawn with pencils and the animations aren't smooth but that's the point and they just look great. Almost like I'm looking over the artist's shoulder as he sketches out the scenes for the first time.
32 - A man's voice is describing the current situation. Humans have discovered an ancient starship on a nearby planet and on the ship was a galactic map etched on a stone. The map points the clans across the inner rim to another planet, which the broken clans can only determine to be their origin, home, Hiigara.

33 - The voice continues saying the battling clans have united together and found a common goal of returning to their home planet. They begin engineering a space fleet and their greatest mind directly into the ships. Man, I love this art style, it's really detailed, a lot more detailed than Hotel Dusk which I mentioned.

34 - The fleet leaves their current home planet and we switch graphical styles to Homeworld's in-game engine and we get a great look at a what must be its mothership. It's a tall command ship and there are a few other smaller ships buzzing around it. A computerized female voice starts reporting diagnostics.
35 - This scene is directed beautifully. We follow a small ship swing around the mothership and dock. There are closeups of the thrusters and antennas, great stuff. This is one of those games though that could really use some bump and normal mapping to make the textures jump out a bit more. Everything looks a bit polygonal and flat.

36 - A small group of ships breaks away from the mothership and starts leading the way. The game seamlessly switches to give me control.

37 - Already this is quite different than training. The game gives me some objectives but obviously no tips. I begin building a research ship, begin harvesting, and need to take out some drones.
39 - I'm told to begin researching a fighter chassis so I give my research ship the instructions. The game keeps going widescreen to give me objectives and show me things. It's a cool, cinematic effect that typically works on me. The voiceovers are a little monotone but that's the military for you.

41 - Next up I give the order for my scouts to use aggressive tactics and take out some more drones.

42 - My next objective is to build a Salvage Corvette and capture a drone. Interesting.
43 - Fighter chassis research is done so now I can build Interceptors.

45 - Ha, cool! The salvage corvette I just built just cruises up to some space junk and magnetically grabs it.

47 - The camera follows the corvette dragging the junk back to the mothership, and then the game tells me it is ready to go into hyperspace! I can launch whenever I'm ready... but I don't know how to go!
49 - I instruct all my ships to dock with the mothership, maybe they all have to be in the house before we pack up and move?

50 - Oh, I was right, you do have to dock all your ships but you also have to enter the Session Manager and click the Hyperspace button. Obvious. The ships begin auto-docking.

51 - WOAH! Hyperspace is cool! Instead of zooming ahead a 2D blue plane begins crossing across the ships slicing them in half almost. They've jumped!
52 - A short, hand drawn cutscene telling me that my mothership has jumped to meet with Khar-Selim, another ship that has been going at normal, sub-light speeds for the last 10 years! This all seems very Ender's Game like. All we need is an ansible.

53 - All my ships undock and I get a message that the Quantum Wave Effect has dissipated! Phew! Not all good news though, we have mis-jumped and have to locate the Khar-Selim.

55 - I send a scout to the location of the beacon. Hopefully we get lucky.
56 - Oh snaps! A cutscene begins as we approach the beacon. The camera pans over what's left of the Khar-Selim. Not good.

57 - Also not good is a fleet of ships heading towards the mothership! The female computer (the super plugged-in engineer mind) seems surprised that they're attacking! I get control right back. Time to fight back!

59 - The enemy fighters are going down pretty easily, but they also have some larger ships that are attacking my mothership and salvage corvette. I try to concentrate on one ship at a time though.
60 - Nice! My seven fighters were able to take out the attacking force while suffering four casualties. But who were these guys? I guess I'll never know since the first hour of Homeworld is up.

Now for some scores out of 10.
Story: 6
Well, I am kind of into the background of Homeworld, but there just seems to be things missing. The story begins with a civilization finding out where their origins lie, so they build a fleet to cross the galaxy and return home. But what's the motivation behind doing this? Was it an excuse to stop the clans from fighting and unite together? Is there an important reason to find home besides just going there? Think Battlestar Galactica where the surviving fleet has to find Earth, but they're being chased and hunted by the Cylons. I can see why they would want to find their Eden but I think they could have used a little more motivation. Plus when I get attacked during the second mission, I have no idea why it's happening. I'm sure I eventually find out, but that's the problem of only playing the first hour.

Graphics and Sound: 9
There have been quite a few technological leaps since Homeworld was released, probably the most notable is bump mapping, something that would have really enhanced the look of the textures on the ships. Without it, the ships appear very flat and fake. But of course, this wasn't readily available at the time on home PCs and the game still looks really good. It helps when you don't have to render detailed environments and can instead focus on the spaceships, and Homeworld takes huge advantage of this. The ships are textured well and you can zoom in really close, something Sins of a Solar Empire, a recently released 3D space real-time strategy, heavily advertised.

The sound that I heard from Homeworld was a little weaker than I expected. The voice acting felt flat but the writing behind it was good. There was some decent chatter between ships that helped clue me in on things. The music had a great ambient sound to it that didn't try to stand out and the sound effects went against all rules of space. But I prefer lasers making sound and small sounding explosions as opposed to nothing. It can really enhance the gameplay.

Gameplay: 8
Well, the training in Homeworld was totally necessary and I'm very glad I did it. The controls are kind of complex as you have keyboard commands, right click menus, and the bottom pop-up menu. Plus you need to have good command over the control, shift, and alt combos. It's the game's biggest hurdle but nothing experienced PC gamers will have problems with. The 3D space adds a new dimension (pun) to real-time strategy games and I think it works well. It's a little tough to manage all your ships at once and I wish there was a way to highlight them better against the blackness of space. It almost seems like things would work better by turning off all the background stars so you can just focus on the battle, but that would take away from the game's graphical appeal. Anyways, this game definitely has a long learning curve and the first hour of Homeworld does a great job starting you off on it.

Fun Factor: 8
Best part of playing Homeworld was watching your ships fly around in formation and attack other ships. It's truly an excellent cinematic experience that you have total control over. The game's pacing is really good which is impressive for a space-based game. The universe is large but it doesn't take too long to get from point A to point B. Once I got to the main game and was being assigned objectives I was really having some fun. There seems to be a great story driving the levels, I just wish I had more time to experience it. But the training is pretty much necessary for new players to the game so there's only about half an hour to get into it.

Minutes to Action: 20

Overall: 8
Don't take the 20 minutes to action too out of context, that was my first combat experience in the game but there was still plenty of things going on before that. Anyways, Homeworld's first hour is really good. I was impressed by its graphical engine and its flexible camera that simply works out of the box. I wish the story had gone a little deeper in the first hour, but the groundwork is there for a good one. As far as the gameplay goes, there's a tough learning curve but I believe there are great rewards hiding within that too. Homeworld is a great evolution from a game like Star Control II, though this game is much more story-driven. I love space operas, and I've added this one to my long list of games to play.

Art by Colin Clark - used with permission.

Game 19: Star Control II: The Ur-Quan Masters

Star Control II: The Ur-Quan Masters is a fifteen year old DOS game that has overtime gained a large following due to a variety of reasons. One of them is that the game is good, well according to the numerous accolades it has received at least. The second reason is that the source code of the 3DO port was released under the GPL license, allowing anyone to dive into the game's innards. A group of dedicated fans have taken advantage of this, and have Windows, Mac, and Linux ports simply known as Ur-Quan Masters. This open source game has had stable releases and I am going to play the first hour of version 0.6.2 of Ur-Quan Masters.

Describing Star Control II is difficult, but basically you control a spaceship on a 2D representation of space and visit planets and fight off evil aliens. The game reminds me the most of Pirates, a swashbuckling adventure where you roam a 2D representation of the high seas and visit towns and fight off evil pirates. Anyways, let's see if my first hour review of Star Control II: The Ur-Quan Masters can get a good idea of what the rest of the game will be like.

With Mass Effect coming out in about a week, I think we might see some comparisons pop up between Star Control II and Mass Effect. It will be interesting if Bioware was inspired by Ur-Quan Masters at all.

(minutes are in bold)
00 - I select New Game and the hour long timer starts. Some information on the open source release flashes by, and then the game begins. It's the story of what happened years before the game (not sure if this is Star Control 1's story or if they're in separate universes), there was a war between the Alliance of Free Stars (obviously the good guys) and the "evil Ur-Quan" (obviously the bad guys).

01 - But instead of learning more about the war, we cut to a team of nerdy scientists who are on an ancient planet where the Precursors once lived. Because of the war and the Ur-Quan's dominance, they were cut off from the rest of mankind and left to their own.
02 - The surviving scientists have turned to colonizing the planet they were stranded on, and started building starships! The plan is for me to travel through hyperspace and return to Earth.

03 - Once I get there, if Earth is still fighting the Ur-Quan, I must help defend our home planet. A screen appears of what looks like our solar system.

04 - A ship is heading towards the center of our galaxy, Sol.
05 - Whoops! I was actually supposed to be controlling that starship, I figured this out as it cruised past Earth and seemed to be on a collision course with the sun! Time to head towards Earth I guess. Woah, space control is realistic, if you thrust in a certain direction, you will continue to head in that direction unless you provide counter-thrust against it. I've been intercepted by the Ur-Quan, I am trespassing in their space.

06 - The creepy alien tells me I am not allowed to approach Earth. I'm supposed to wait here for the Ur-Quan... yeah right.

07 - I decide to head towards our Moon. It appears on my main screen, just rotating. I find out I can scan it for some information. Actually I'm able to do a bunch of different scans: Mineral, Energy, and Biological.
08 - I tell my ship to land and I'm able to cruise around Luna's surface picking up basic minerals. There's some little robots cruising around by they don't seem to affect me.

09 - I have come across an alien base on the surface. It's abandoned, but I salvage what I can out of it.

10 - I pull up a detailed star map of the galaxy. Wow, there is a lot to explore! Literally hundreds of planets and solar systems. I am overwhelmed.
11 - Leaving the moon now I head towards an orbiting space station. When I arrive there I receive a transmission. They tell me they are of the slave planet Earth and ask me if I'm the resupply vessel for their starbase. I get a list of replies like a typical adventure game and tell them I'm not the resupply ship but I'm here to help.

13 - The station hasn't been resupplied in 8 years, and they need materials to sustain life support. Maybe the Ur-Quan aren't around anymore? There's important radioactive elements on Mercury. Guess that's my destination.

15 - I arrive at Mercury, time to find some radioactive materials with my Mineral scan. It's empty of Energy and Biological readings.
17 - I get some annoying beeps when hovering over materials... dang it, I think my cargo is full.

18 - I dump some stuff in my cargo menu and head back down. This time I'm able to pick up some Uranium. I have 32 pieces of it. Hopefully that's enough.

19 - I think some of my crew may have died on Mercury due to the extreme hot zones and earthquakes, I went in having 50 members, now I'm down to 43. Ouch.

20 - I'm back at the orbiting station and send them the radioactives. Power is back on right away. Oh by the way, there is voice acting when talking to this guy, not just text. This actor is decent enough that it seems realistic.
21 - He asks me who I am, and I tell him. He doesn't believe me though. I can see Earth behind him, it's blood red. Looks like the last 20 years have not been good.

22 - He tells me that it's actually a slave shield stopping anyone from going in and out, so maybe Earth is normal underneath it. As normal as life can be without satellites and having a red sky.

23 - If I can eliminate the alien base on the moon, he will help me fight the Ur-Quan... but I already found the base abandoned!

24 - A ship is incoming! Looks like the Ur-Quan are still around, and still ugly. He almost looks like Fu-Manchu.
26 - After babbling on a bit, looks like I have to pick a ship to fight with, I take the only large ship I have, The Vindicator.

27 - Ouch, no idea how to shoot! Okay, I was defeated very quickly, wtf. Guess I should have saved.

28 - Time to get back to where I was before, I should be able to do it a lot faster this time, if I can figure out how to skip dialogue.

31 - Okay, saving this time before I give them radioactive materials.
34 - Lost again. I suck at this or something.

35 - And again.

36 - YES! Finally, it only took like five shots... Seems like the orbiting ship wants to help me now, sweet. I'm down to 25 crew members though, they really need to stop standing next to exploding computer stations!

38 - I get to name our new alliance, and it will be The Empire of Zelnick! That's my name - in the game, not real life.
39 - Time to question the starbase commander on the area. Seems like they're also able to upgrade my ship with tons of different upgrades. Wow, seems complex.

43 - The commander is still talking to me, there's so much to learn. This is like a combination of so many genres into one game (but not as obvious as Spore).

45 - After an exhausting chat, I'm shown a new screen of the starbase with options to outfit my ship. Time to check that out.

46 - Advancing my ship seems complex too, there's tons of different modules I can enhance. The commander gave me a few suggestions such as thrusters and weaponry, so I'm going to try and figure out how to "purchase" those.
48 - Currency is measured in Resource Units, I start with about 2000. I spend 1500 of those on two thrusters and one turning jet. Expensive stuff.

50 - I'm able to buy additional Earthling Cruisers for 1100, not bad. But probably barebones with no modules.

52 - Back to actually controlling my ship now! I head to Lunia to scavenge for my first materials.

54 - My cargo bays sure are small, I fill up without even finishing off the moon.

55 - I approach Earth but I'm not able to scan it, too bad.

56 - My next stop is Venus, a very green planet in this game. A quick scan shows very few minerals and nothing else. Well, that sucked. I was on the planet for approximately three seconds before my lander blew up! Lightning struck it from all over and before I could even give the message to get out of there, I was a goner. 12 crew members and a 500 RU lander gone without warning. Hardcore.
58 - With only 533 RU available to me, I purchase another lander. This is gonna be tight.

59 - Mars should be safe, right?
60 - Well, I don't die immediately and I'm able to fill up on raw materials. I return to the starbase for the final time this hour and offload onto the commander. He tells me it's a small load. I have a feeling this game is in it for the long haul and the first hour is just scratching the surface of an incredibly deep game.

Now for some scores out of 10.

Story: 8
When I first started playing, the story reminded me of Battlestar Galactica a lot. I think it was how the scientists were stranded and needed to find Earth again. Well, it turns out they know exactly where Earth was so that didn't matter much. Either way, I've read quite a bit of science fiction and this story seems pretty original, at least to me. I like the idea of flying around the galaxy and potentially meeting new alien species and discovering new worlds, sounds very intriguing but I wonder if there is a solid story or if it'll just be mission after mission.
Graphics and Sound: 7
This is such a difficult category to rate. The game really doesn't look that great nowadays, even the art style isn't that unique or interesting. But, we have to keep in mind that the game is 15 years old so I would like to consider it as so. I think the best looking aspects of the game are the planets and the few aliens I saw. Each of them have a lot of potential to give the game a lot of variety and maybe add some humor. But what I saw was mostly mediocre, not to mention the graphics everywhere else. Everything is very simple but I have to admit it gets the job done. There's absolutely zero extra fluff. The HUD is laid out in a way that I was able to recognize all the important stuff instantly. The sound design is pretty simplistic but the voice acting was very good, especially the alien voices.
Gameplay: 7
Gameplay in Ur-Quan Masters can be a mixed bag. Menu navigation is easy enough and the simple graphics lend to that. The spaceship controls just like a real spaceship probably would - objects in motion stay in motion. This can be difficult to handle as I overshot planets a lot, undoubtedly wasting precious fuel in the process. So thus cruising around on the planets in my land rover is disorienting because it controls with zero momentum. And finally we come to the ship-to-ship battles, which feature an insane combination of always facing the wrong direction and slow turning. I never felt like I had enough fingers to do everything I needed to do, which is probably why I forgot to shoot those first couple of attempts.
Fun Factor: 8
Overall I had a lot of fun, the only time I didn't was during my short space battles. I really enjoyed the adventure elements and learning about what happened to Earth since the scientists had left. However, within the first hour, Star Control II exhibits a lot of complexity that you don't normally see so early on. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but working on your ship is an intimidating process. Compare this game to something like Civilization 2, which by the end of the game can be quite complicated, but early on the challenge is limited to things on a much smaller scope. I am a littler worried that the later stages of Star Control II may get out of hand!
Minutes to Action: 5
Overall: 8
Star Control II: The Ur-Quan Masters is one of the few games I have reviewed where I had zero prior experience with the game. This puts me directly in the position of someone else who may be interesting in checking out what this open-source game has to offer. I honestly found the game very enjoyable with tons of potential, if not a little rough around the edges. I understand the developers are trying to replicate the original experience on a number of platforms, but some additional things would be nice: mouse support, save hotkeys, and maybe some updated art to name a few. Either way, this is a classic DOS experience that is still greatly accessible today. I reviewed this game on the suggestion of a few people, so here's my thanks to them for recommending Star Control II. If you enjoyed this review, I would highly recommend you check out the totally free and legal download of Ur-Quan Masters at SourceForge, you won't regret it.

Game 12: Halo: Combat Evolved

Halo: Combat Evolved was released along with the original Xbox and essentially defined the console, along with the entire last generation of first person shooter games. Halo was one of the most popular games of the last few years, basically only surpassed by its sequel and a few other select games. Featuring a two player cooperative campaign and a multiplayer mode that supports up to 16 players over system link (multiple Xboxes on the same LAN), Halo basically had everything gamers wanted, and definitely everything the Xbox needed to get the kick in the pants that it needed. The game sold millions and so did the Xbox along with it.

Halo is basically the opposite of a game like Beyond Good and Evil. It's extremely popular with gamers, readily recognized in mainstream media, and considered overrated by some (or many, depends on who you talk to). But with Halo 3 less than a week away, Bungie's blockbuster series is on the rise. But how does it all begin? Does the first hour of Halo start the series with a bang, or a fizzle? Read on and find out.

There are no pictures in this post because I am stuck at work dealing with a major support issue. I plan to add them later this week.

(minutes are in bold)
00 - The game is ready and I select campaign from the menu, I enter my name and then select my difficulty level. I'm actually a highly experienced Halo player so I'll choose Heroic (hard). Heroic is still decently hard for someone who hasn't played in a while (me) and hopefully will deliver a similar experience to a Halo virgin playing for the first time. Anyways, a cutscene begins, we're looking out into space (feels slightly familiar to another game's opening) but there's a giant ring just floating there. We see a space cruiser fly over us, the "Pillar of Autumn" is inscribed on its side.

01 - Now we're inside the bridge, listening to a man and woman talk. We made a blind jump to this ring to try and beat the bad guys here, but they're already waiting for us! It's a trap! 90 seconds until the battle begins. Turns out the woman's voice is from Cortana, a holographic computerized representation of the ship's artificial intelligence (that was a lot of big words).

02 - The humans send out their attack ships to deal with the Covenant (the alien race that we humans must not be friendly with). In the launching bay there's also huge tanks and the famous Halo Warthogs. We see a black marine captain yelling at his crew about the impending battle.

03 - The captain gives out word to "unseal the hushed casket." This means thawing out our hero, Master Chief. We see the big man in the suit stand up and stretch.

04 - Crap, my controls aren't inverted. Say what you want about inverted, but it's what I grew up with playing flight simulators and such. Well, I'll tough it out. I follow a soldier out of the room and then he gets blown up! Thanks for leading me out of the room, buddy!

05 - There's battles in every hallway I enter, but I can't participate directly yet, no weapons. Instead, blast doors are closed between the enemies so I can't get too close...

06 - I have to use my suit's flashlight in some areas, this isn't Doom 3 style darkness, but it adds some variety (and annoyance finding that flashlight button). Another marine yells for me to follow him to the bridge so I start trailing him through some more fire fights. In the distance I can see both little enemies (grunts) and large, human sized baddies (elites).

07 - I enter the bridge and a cutscene kicks in. The captain and Cortana explain the situation and Master Chief kicks in a few words here and there.

08 - They make the decision to abandon ship, but Captain Keyes wants to land the giant battleship on the ring! He gives me my mission: to get Cortana safely off the ship, because if the Covenant capture her, they'll know everything, including the location of Earth! (cue dramatic music)

09 - Master Chief sticks Cortana's chip inside his suit (hmm...) and the captain gives me his pistol, no ammo but I quickly find some.

10 - I get to kill my first grunts! Feels good.

11 - Now for my first real battle, a pretty intense shootout in a hallway, the elites can take a lot of hits! The A.I. seems pretty intelligent, hiding behind barriers and around corners, but the game is pretty lenient in terms of hit boxes. I lose some health but find a health pack attached to the wall and refill. If you don't know how Halo's health system works, you have both a shield and health. When your shield gets knocked out, you start losing health, but your shield will recharge itself after being out of harm for a few seconds. However, you won't get that health back unless you find health packs, which is what I needed!

12 - After picking up some sticky grenades from the Covenant, I put them to good use and attach them to a grunt. He knows it's on him and runs around screaming... right into all his buddies! Very satisfying death cries from that one.

13 - The covenant are docking onto our ship from our own pod launches, tricky bastards. I head into an empty one and grab one of their overshields, nice!

14 - I get whacked by an elite, and the grunts are chucking grenades at me. It's hard but I'm loving the excitement.

15 - The ship is very large and seems complex, but yet I don't get lost. There's really only one linear route, but there's enough hallways and different routes to sustain a lot of variety. This probably took a lot of effort from the level designers and I applaud them.

17 - You can only carry around two weapons at a time, so I'm constantly having to make a choice on what to keep. I decide to stick with the human pistol and assault rifle.

18 - I enter a room to find a two level fire fight going on. The Covenant are holding the upper level and we have to slowly pick them off, running up there would be suicide.

20 - A moment of dumb A.I. as an elite just stands behind a shield looking bored. I stick him good.

23 - I'm starting to notice a lot of cool scripted events: explosions, guys dying, fights in the distance, good stuff.

24 - What a fool I am! I dashed into a hallway only to find myself surrounded by Covenant! I back peddle out of there quickly while lobbing a few grenades, looks like they worked well.

25 - A marine gets stuck by a grenade, he runs around flailing his arms, then blows up. Ouch!

26 - I load up into the last lifeboat left on the ship, then we blast off. Master Chief don't need no seatbelt.

27 - We fly by the ring and then head in for a landing. No where else to go I suppose.

28 - Loading - then the next level starts. We're coming in too fast and have a crash landing!

29 - So Master Chief, the only guy who's not wearing his seatbelt, is the only one alive. I decide this is a good time to save and quit and update my control settings, must turn on inverted...

30 - I'm back in the game pretty quickly. This level is much different than the last, it's wide open, grassy, and there's blue sky above (and you can see the other side of the inner ring way up there in the distance).

31 - Cortana warns me of an incoming dropship, time to hightail it out of here, but I'm not sure where to go. I wander around for a bit and find the path I need to take just as the ship is landing.

32 - I'm getting shot at by flying ships, these guys pack a punch. I use the scattered boulders as cover.

33 - I'm still getting dogged by the small fighters, but I manage to take one down with a lot of pistol shots.

34 - As the second ship finally flies off, the dropship party is just reaching me! Time for a small skirmish with them. I find it hard to fight in such open grounds, you have to use the little cover given you very wisely.

36 - I enter a large field with a huge building on it, but there's a dropship between me and some marines. We work together to take them out, then meet up.

37 - I find some needed health on a marine escape ship. And then I get killed. I was too much out in the open and a red colored elite took me out with a bunch of well placed shot.

38 - I end up reloading right where I got the health, guess that was a checkpoint! As I pass a marine, he mutters "This is suicide!" Sometimes I have to agree.

40 - I pick up the Covenant weapon the Needler as my pistol is out of ammo. This is a heat seeking machine gun like weapon that shoots out pink needles. It seems pretty effective, but it's a lot of fun to use.

42 - Bad guys just keep coming from dropships, but a woman comes on the com telling us that more escape pods are landing and we should help them out. Time to head out... but I don't wanna walk there!

43 - Lucky for us, a marine dropship drops me off a big old Warthog! Warthogs are basically rugged jeeps that are very fun to drive. They're fast, and can hold a gunner and an extra passenger.

44 - I have no idea where to go so I get out so another guy can drive us there. Except no one will get in the driver's seat, guess I'll be exploring on my own!

45 - I head into a cave that Cortana explains was not made naturally (I'm guessing nothing on this ring "planet" was made naturally). The walls quickly become metallic like so I'm obviously heading into some kind of base. And I bet I know who's waiting for me.

47 - And it's the Covenant! I drive in the middle of a huge room and my gunner starts mowing down grunts and elites. I hop out to assist in the massacre.

48 - I get blown up by a sticky grenade! Stupid grunts and their lucky throws! But I get my revenge by sticking two straights grunts after I come back.

50 - I have to activate a bridge to move on, so I hit the controls and there's a cutscene as the bridge extends. Not sure if that cutscene was necessary but whatever.

52 - I drive out into open air in the Warthog, glowing markers on the ground mark my way. Thanks Halo!

53 - I approach a very rocky area, almost like a maze. There are marines in there fighting for their lives against the Covenant! Luckily, I find a sniper rifle and start taking down anything the dropships are dropping off. I meet up with the black marine leader from the beginning.

55 - Just noticing how great the draw distance this game features, the sniper rifle's scope really shows stuff off.

56 - I'm able to snipe enemies that are still in the dropships, effectively making their entire journey moot.

57 - One of our own dropships approaches, and I jump in. All the marines jump in too. But then it starts flying off and kicks me out! Guess I gotta get back in the Warthog and go... somewhere... on the ground.

60 - My hour runs out as I cruise around on the Warthog, with no clear way to go. I finally discover a group of marines clustered in a hill, and a huge battle is about to begin! Oh well. Looked like it could have been fun.

Now for some scores out of 10.

Story: 5
Nothing too impressive, but Halo's first hour begins an intriguing tale of two warring races and a mysterious ring world. It doesn't try to be too deep at the beginning and it also doesn't have an unnecessary or prolonged opening cutscene. There seems to be a lot of potential for a great story and I think the game could have explored the human's relationship with the Covenant better, either through Cortana during actual gameplay or something. But we really have no idea why they're fighting or why they raced to his Halo ring. But then again, it's a first person shooter so I'm not expecti