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I remember the first time I played Halo: Combat Evolved at a friend’s place. This friend was doing quite well for himself, and he had a big widescreen TV (this was still aspirational in 2001) and a fantastic surround sound system. The experience was totally enveloping. I remember playing one level — I think it was the start of The Silent Cartographer — and whirling Master Chief around in panic because I could hear a Covenant dropship landing right behind me. It wasn’t a dropship; it was my friend’s washer beginning its spin cycle.
When I think about Halo, which I have been doing this week due to the launch of the remake Halo: Campaign Evolved, the first thing I think about is how it sounds. There is no shortage of stuff in this game that you can pick out as an exemplar of its genius: the co-op support, the peerless gamefeel, the controversial but inspired two-weapon limit, the famous “30 seconds of fun” combat loop, the vehicles, and that majestic skybox, with the ringworld arcing into the heavens. But it’s always the audio I go back to.
Marty O’Donnell’s thumping, galloping theme music. The deep vwooop of Master Chief’s shield recharging. The thick, satisfying thwack of a melee blow. The 10-second story told when you unleash a full clip with the Needler: the thin rattle as the rounds shoot out, the way they whistle through the air to the target and smack home, the delayed, flat bang as they detonate, the clunk-clack of the reloading cartridge. And the greatest enemy barks in history, of course — the excitable, comic chatter of the Grunts, the Elites’ “worp worp worp,” simultaneously absurd and threatening.
I haven’t played the game in years, but I can summon this soundscape to mind instantly. I’d happily listen to a playthrough with my eyes closed, picturing the scene in my mind. There’s a profound physicality to Halo‘s sound effects that does so much to help the game feel tangible and real.
In the beginning, physicality was what Xbox was all about. I remember unpacking my own console a few months later. The thing was ugly as sin, but it had an impressive solidity and heft to it, and it came packed with audiophile-quality gold-plated cables for transmitting that sound and those visuals to your TV. It would never win a beauty pageant against the stylishly crisp PS2 or the adorable retro-futurism of the GameCube. But in build quality terms, it was playing a different ballgame. And, most importantly, it came with Halo.
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