Halo: Out With a Whimper Demo

Halo managed to gather a huge fan base over the years, although the real cult following has started after Halo 3 was released on the Xbox 360. Due to the exquisite multiplayer experience and the intricate story involving aliens and hardcore futuristic soldiers, the game lived on for years as the best of its kind on Microsoft’s console, at least until the next episode came around.

Halo: Out With a Whimper is a sidescrolling platformer that attempts to transpose the fascinating tale of humankind’s struggle against the aliens into something slightly more old-school. Thus, beside the fact that an entire dimension got stripped away, all of the other gameplay mechanics have been replaced as well, in order to be in tune with the new point of view and go well with the heavily scripted enemies.

As far as the story is concerned, the year is 2552 and the Covenant has attacked the Earth, only to conquer it shortly thereafter, thanks to its superior firepower and technology. However, Atlas - the last remaining human colony - still stands strong, although the Covenant seems to be planning to change that. Hence, Master Chief must defend Atlas and defeat the Covenant once and for all.

In case you forgot how sidescrollers work, then you should remember that they are really fast and disorienting, a trait that did not appear to be so obvious back when they were more common. There are many things going on at the same time and you must either shoot them or get out of their way, which can get pretty intense after a while and you might require a few minutes to get used to it.

On the other hand, the 2D graphics are very nicely made and you can clearly see that a lot of work went into the level design, not to mention all of the environments that try to emulate the 3D beauty seen in the official titles. However, even in such a small resolution and with not nearly enough colors, the game looks nice and you can definitely immerse yourself into the Halo universe.

All things considered, Halo: Out With a Whimper truly delivered when it comes to gameplay, atmosphere and graphics, although you may still have some trouble with the difficulty level. Other than that, the game is a very good example of what you can achieve when you really like something.