Incredible, I’m sure. Especially for people who weren’t playing on PC before - it generally stands up to Half-Life in a lot of ways, including the enemy movement and maybe even AI, but the cutscenes have that more traditional cinematic look. I love the constant immersion of Half-Life, but this feels like watching an awesome sci-fi action movie, like Aliens. There’s enough survival horror and cosmic horror vibes as well to keep you going.
Consoles really didn’t have many good FPS until then. I’d say the Timesplitters series was a standout, as was Medal of Honor: Frontline.
Both of those felt kind of on rails compared to Halo though. Wide open areas, three way battles, vehicles…
Yeah, the vehicles and battlefield chaos are really well executed. It feels genuinely grandiose today, so it must have been mind blowing at the time. I can also tell the campaign is meant to teach you how to play multiplayer, which other games would go on to do in the years to come.
There’s a lot of Battlefield 3 in there. Or the other way around, more appropriately.