Halo, can you hear me now?

I played my first game of Halo last night.  Not Halo 2 mind you, the developers only just finished that up recently and while I might technically be an 'insider' I haven't had access to any pre release versions of that one.  I'm talking about the bona-fide original product.  I opened up the box sometime after 10pm and launched into a game of kill or be killed mayhem, against the PC, on 'easy' mode.  I figured I should probably give it a spin before the new one is out.  After all, its been sitting in its box on the shelf for nearly a year, waiting, calling, daring me to open it, but I've resisted.  I can't do it.  There are already too many games loaded onto the PC, unfinished, frozen in save game stasis for all eternity.   

But it looked so sad sitting there, unwanted, unplayed.  I figured I ought to at least once boot the thing before its completely obsolete, shake out the system and let it run for a while.  That's why I ran it through on easy mode.  Not to spare my fragile male ego, my inability to point and click and fire off a hundred rounds, but to spare the software the nightmare of finally being booted, only to replay level one over and over again.  It was charity on my part to allow it a chance to fully express itself and all of its graphics, in one glorious night of digital demolition.

The game was great, however, it still let me down in one regard.  Where were the vampires and the floating cities?  And I did not meet one Pak Protector!   And guys, the secret weapon controls are inside Mons Olympus on the map of Mars.

But you probably already knew that.

Matt