The game starts off like a house on fire, with the Master Chief awoken from a cryogenic sleep to defend the The Pillar Of Autumn warship, which has come under attack from the aggressive Covenant race.
It still stands as the best console FPS and nearly two years on still looks ahead of its time with benchmark AI, great visuals, a credible sci-fi tale, great soundtrack, cracking multiplayer including the superb co-op mode. Before the flame wars kick off again, I thought Halo was a great game, a true classic that deserves its lofty status as the Xbox's killer app.