Halo: fight for the future

Halo: fight for the future
Halo logo: Fight for the future
Original title	Halo: Combat Evolved
Studio	Bungie Studios ( Xbox ) Gearbox Software ( Windows , macOS ) Westlake Interactive (macOS)
Publisher	Microsoft Game Studios MacSoft (macOS)
Senior Developer	Jason Jones
composer	Martin O'Donnell Michael Salvatori
Erstveröffent- lichung	Xbox November 15, 2001 March 14, 2002 Windows September 30, 2003 October 10, 2003 macOS December 3, 2003
platform	Windows , macOS , Xbox
genre	Ego shooter
Game mode	Single player , multiplayer
control	Mouse and keyboard, gamepad
system advantages preconditions	Xbox / PC: Windows 98 SE , 2000, ME, XP 733 MHz processor 128 MB RAM Graphics card with 32 MB RAM (T&L capable) 1.2 GB hard disk space Mac: Mac OS X version 10.2.8-10.4 or 10.5 800 MHz PowerPC G4 processor or better
medium	DVD-ROM , CD-ROM
language	Multilingual
Current version	1.10
Age rating	USK PEGI

Halo: Fight for the Future (Orig .: Halo: Combat Evolved ) is a first-person shooter developed by Bungie Studios and the first part of the Halo series . To this day, it is considered a reference product for first-person shooters on the Xbox , which is why the first-person shooter was also very successful commercially, with over six million units sold. A new edition of the game for the 10th birthday was published for the Xbox 360 under the name Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary on November 15, 2011. In early November 2014, the new edition of the game appeared again in the compilation Halo - The Master Chief Collection exclusively for Xbox One . In March 2019 it was announced that the Master Chief Collection and thus also Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary will be released for the PC.

Plot and course of the game

The game is set in the year 2552, when the people of the earth were forced to settle on other planets due to overpopulation. 32 years earlier, contact with an outer colony called "Harvest" had been lost. When a task force was sent to survey, only one badly damaged ship returned. The crew reported an "invincible alien ship" that easily destroyed the human armed forces. That was the first encounter with Allianz.

The player slips into the role of the Master Chief , also known as SPARTAN 117 (real name: John) - apparently the last survivor of genetically modified soldiers from the SPARTAN II project. Everyone else was on a planet called Reach , preparing for the assignment to board an Alliance ship to find the enemy's home planet. However, planet Reach was largely glazed by the Alliance two days before the mission. Only one ship, the Pillar of Autumn , escaped on the last SPARTAN-II. The game begins aboard the Pillar of Autumn , commanded by the legendary Captain Jacob Keyes.

The spaceship is fleeing from the hostile forces of the Alliance, an alliance of various alien species that have wiped out the largest strategic base outside of human earth (Planet Reach ) and then pursued the Pillar of Autumn . The Master Chief , previously in a deep freeze, is thawed and tasked with evacuating the ship's artificial intelligence, called Cortana , in order to remove it from the enemy. For this purpose, the AI ​​is transferred to his combat suit and usually takes on the role of the sidekick in the further game .

During the game, the hero's objective changes several times. The first thing to do is to leave the ship, which has already been captured by the enemy, intact with the AI ​​(Cortana AI level 5) in the luggage. After landing on the artificial ringworld Halo, the Master Chief helps to bring the scattered comrades to safety and goes in search of the captain who has been captured by the Alliance. After the Master Chief has rescued various UNSC soldiers who were able to escape with escape pods from the Pillar of Autumn , which was destroyed by the Alliance , he goes in search of the map room. There, Cortana learns from the Alliance radio, should be the way to the control room Halos, in which the ultimate weapon Halos can be activated. When the Master Chief succeeded in reaching the control room, Cortana connects to the main Halo system and learns news that apparently worries her very much, and as a result, without further explanation, orders the Master Chief to come to him Go to Captain Keyes to prevent him from opening the Halos Armory.

In the following mission 343 Guilty Spark , the first contact of the Master Chief, who had separated in the previous mission Attack on the control room of Cortana, with the Flood takes place: In this mission, the Master Chief opens a door, whereupon the corpse of a marine is for him falls into her arms. From the recordings of the soldier's helmet camera, it becomes clear how Captain Keyes entered the room with a small squad of soldiers and was suddenly attacked by a strange species that later turns out to be Flood. After escaping the building complex, he meets the Illuminat (343 Guilty Spark), an artificial being and part of Halo's security facility. He explains that he has a solution for the flood.

The player must now help the Illuminati to activate the appropriate mechanisms. As soon as this task is done, the protagonist of the game and the Illuminat go to the control room, where Cortana explains to the Master Chief how Halo really works: It turns out that the Illuminat's "solution" is to simply make the Flood " To withdraw food ", so starve them. This is to be accomplished by activating halos to extinguish all biological life within a radius of 25,000 light years. This would be tantamount to the extinction of all humanity (and all other living beings). From this point on, it is up to the player to destroy the Illuminati’s plan. The player must detonate the reactors of the Pillar of Autumn to destroy the entire ring. For this, however, he needs Captain Keyes neural implants, which is why he has to go on a ship contaminated by the flood.

When you want to save Captain Keyes, he has already been assimilated by the Flood, and you only find his lifeless body, from which the Master Chief, after a brief hesitation and Cortana's hint that the Captain would have wanted it, "removes" the neural implants. Finally, with Cortana's help, the Master Chief manages to overload the reactor core of the Pillar of Autumn , which has crashed on Halo , and escape just before the explosion that destroys Halo. In the following film sequence, after a short area scan, Cortana responds to the Master Chief's question whether anyone else survived that this was not the case, whereupon the SPARTAN 117 is visibly depressed. In the end, he doubts Cortana's comment that the story is over, and even says that the attack has only just begun; an indication of at least one successor to Halos.

After the end credits, another film sequence starts showing the Illuminati halos despite the explosion.

History of origin

Halo origins under Bungie

Since Bungie developed games for the Apple Macintosh - including one of the earliest first-person shooters called Marathon - Halo was initially intended as a PC and Macintosh title. The first Halo preview was shown at the 1999 Macworld Conference & Expo , and it made a big impression on the audience. Among other things, the imaginative game world and the elaborate graphics of this early version were praised. It ran on a Macintosh under Mac OS 9 and was rendered in real time using OpenGL . Originally a complete ring world was envisaged, which can be explored freely (recognizable from early trailers and preview versions) and which should be equipped with a diverse fauna.

Halo realignment under Microsoft

However, shortly before the game was released, Bungie was bought out by Microsoft. Microsoft, shortly before the Xbox launch, was still looking for outstanding games and Halo was to become the Xbox's killer application , i.e. without the support of the competing platforms, PlayStation or Mac. After Microsoft took over Bungie, Halo was converted for the Xbox at great expense and numerous massive changes were made to the engine , the level design and the game world. Originally planned as a real-time strategy game , Halo was first implemented as a third-person shooter and finally as a first-person shooter. It was finally released on November 15, 2001 exclusively for the XBox in English. The game was later implemented for the PC by Gearbox Software and was released in 2003. The Macintosh version was published last.

In addition, an Xbox 360-optimized version of Halo: Battle for the Future was released on the Xbox Marketplace .

HD remake

Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary
Studio	343 Industries Saber Interactive
Publisher	Microsoft Studios
composer	Martin O'Donnell Michael Salvatori
Erstveröffent- lichung	November 15, 2011
platform	Xbox 360
Game engine	Saber3D Engine
genre	Ego shooter
Game mode	Single player , multiplayer
control	Gamepad
medium	DVD-ROM , download
language	Multilingual
Age rating	USK PEGI

At the company press conference for E3 2011, Microsoft announced a new edition ( HD remake ) of the first Halo game as a development by 343 Industries . In addition to the Halo Reach multiplayer mode, Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary contains the campaign of the original game, which has been graphically adapted to the level of Halo Reach . However, it is possible to switch to the original graphics at the push of a button without having to interrupt the game. Halo Reach's multiplayer mode has been expanded to include six maps from the original game and one more. The game mechanics of the original remained untouched. Halo Combat Evolved Anniversary has been available for Xbox 360 since November 15, 2011, and in 2014 the same version appeared in the complete box of all Halo titles released for Xbox One under the title Halo - The Master Chief Collection .

continuation

Halo 2 was released on November 9, 2004 in the US and on November 11, 2004 in the rest of the world, again exclusively for Microsoft's Xbox. The game sold 3.5 million times on the day of publication. A PC version was also released in 2007.

Shutdown of the GameSpy multiplayer server

In April 2014 it was announced that the GameSpy servers , which are required for multiplayer, would be shut down on May 31, 2014. GameRanger announced that it would provide support for Halo , while a team of fans and Bungie employees announced that they would create a patch to match . Patch v1.10 was released on May 16, 2014.

literature

→ Main article : "Literature" in the article Halo (game series)

• Eric S. Trautmann: The Art of Halo: The Creation of a Virtual World . Panini Verlag , 2005, ISBN 3-8332-1260-8 .

Soundtracks to the games

• 2002: Halo - Original Soundtrack (New Edition with Bonus DVD 2005) by Martin O'Donnell and Michael Salvatori
• 2007: Halo 1 & 2 (3 CDs) (consists of: Halo - Original Soundtrack + Halo 2 Volume One + Halo 2 Volume Two ) by Martin O'Donnell, Michael Salvatori, Nile Rodgers , Incubus , Breaking Benjamin , Hoobastank , Nataraj
• 2008: Halo Trilogy - Complete Original Soundtrack (5 CDs) (consists of: Halo - Original Soundtrack + Halo 2 Volume Two + Halo Wars Bonus DVD + Halo 3 )
• 2011: Halo Combat Evolved Anniversary (2 CDs / Vinyl) by Martin O'Donnell and Michael Salvatori

Web links

• Halo: Combat Evolved on the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Official Halo website (multilingual)
• GamePro .de: Halo - A game and its influence - How Halo has changed the game landscape

Individual evidence

1. ^ Current Westlake Projects. (No longer available online.) Westlake Interactive, archived from the original on April 2, 2004 ; accessed on July 27, 2018 (English). 
2. ↑ Halo. (No longer available online.) MacSoft, archived from the original on April 1, 2004 ; accessed on July 27, 2018 (English). 
3. ↑ Spieletipps.de Halo Retrieved September 11, 2012.
4. ^ CNN.com
5. ↑ Everything was different - Halo: Combat Evolved on new player (May 29, 2008)
6. ↑ IGN Staff: Microsoft Buys Bungie, Take Two Buys Oni, PS2 Situation Unchanged - There will be Oni, but there will be no Halo on PlayStation2 - analysis inside. IGN, June 19, 2000, accessed December 22, 2012 . 
7. ^ Rob Crossley: Steve Jobs 'raged at Microsoft' over game studio sale. (No longer available online.) In: Develop . October 26, 2010, archived from the original on December 14, 2011 ; accessed on December 8, 2011 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
8. ↑ Mitch Dyer: GAMESPY MULTIPLAYER SHUTTING DOWN, HUNDREDS OF GAMES AT RISK. In: IGN. Ziff Davis, April 3, 2014, accessed May 12, 2014 . 
9. ↑ Emily Gera: Halo: Combat Evolved multiplayer will survive in the face of Gamespy shutdown. In: polygon. Vox Media, May 12, 2014, accessed May 23, 2014 . 
10. ↑ Arthur Miller: Home News Halo: Combat Evolved PC Bungie to update Halo PC with server fix. In: Eurogamer . Gamer Network, May 12, 2014, accessed May 23, 2014 . 
11. ↑ Alice O'Connor: Is It Bungie You're Looking For? Halo Patch Drops GameSpy. Rock, Paper, Shotgun, May 19, 2014, archived from the original on May 19, 2014 ; accessed on May 23, 2014 .