Man, I feel like a Forerunner. Ten years after unsealing the hushed casket, the boys at 343 Industries – Bungie, in spirit — are honouring their long-time legendary loyalties with next week’s enhanced anniversary edition of the real 2001 space odyssey, Halo: Combat Evolved, Bungie’s breakthrough that redefined the first-person shooter’s limitations and set the genre loose on the home console market. Rest assured, we’ll have Anniversary’s review for you and more, but to satisfy your insatiable nostalgic appetite until its release, we thought we’d take a look back at Master Chief’s original outer-space outing before coming around full circle.
First, the looming question: why is Halo so significant to gaming culture? What impact and legacy has it left on the hearts and minds, both developer and player alike, within our illustrious industry? To mince words, what’s the big deal? Twenty years have forged the first-person shooter into the most popular genre in gaming, sure, but where Doom formulated, Halo reinvented, shocking the desktop shooter skeptics convinced that a control stick was no match for a mouse. Bungie proved the naysayers’ negativity null and moot.