Halo is set in the twenty-sixth century, with the player assuming the role of the Master Chief, a cybernetically enhanced super soldier. The player is accompanied by Cortana, an artificial intelligence who occupies the Master Chief's neural interface. Players battle various aliens as they attempt to uncover the secrets of the eponymous Halo, a ring-shaped artificial world. The game has been commended for elements such as its story, the variety of strategies players can employ, and its multiplayer mode however, the repetitive nature of its level design was criticized by some reviewers.

Halo has been praised as one of the greatest video games of all time, and was ranked by IGN as the fourth-best first-person shooter made. The game's pority has led to labels such as "Halo clone" and "Halo killer", applied respectively to games either similar to or anticipated to be better than it. In addition, the game inspired and was used in the fan-created Red vs. Blue video series, which is credited as the "first big success" of machinima (the technique of using real-time 3D engines, often from video games, to create animated films).




System Requirements (minimum)
CPU: Pentium II or Athlon equivalent
CPU SPEED: 733 MHz
RAM: 128 MB
OS: Windows 98SE/ME/2000/XP (95 & NT not supported)
VIDEO CARD: 32 MB Video Card, T&L Capable
DIRECTX VERSION: 8.1
SOUND CARD: Yes
FREE DISK SPACE: 1.2 GB
CD-ROM: 8x speed or faster CD-ROM drive

Recommended Requirements
CPU: Pentium 4 or Athlon XP
CPU SPEED: 1.5 GHz
RAM: 512 MB
OS: Windows 2000/XP
VIDEO CARD: 64 MB DirectX 9.0 compliant Video Card with Hardware T&L
DIRECTX VERSION: 9.0
SOUND CARD: Yes
FREE DISK SPACE: 2 GB
CD-ROM: 8x speed or faster CD-ROM drive