PixlBit

First up on my journey are launch games, November 2001. I have two and another on the way but I have to start with what I know best and that's Halo: Combat Evolved.

Since I played it so much back in the day, I thought, to save time, I'd play it with permadeath and start on the highest difficulty, allowing myself to restart the game after a death on the next lower difficulty. The object was to see how far I got each time. 

On Legendary I died in the cafeteria on the Pillar of Autumn. That's the very first fight in the game! You take a ton of damage with every hit and enemies dodge and weave like 8-year-olds on Mountain Dew and Twix bars. As I was searching for better cover, an Elite shot me in the back with plasma fire. I restarted on Heroic difficulty. 

Now back in the day, my friend and I beat the game on Heroic, but it's been a while. I got to the escape pods on the Pillar of Autumn and died taking a plasma grenade to the face. On Heroic you don't usually survive that. I had turned a corner, saw some Elites, started firing, and then I couldn't see because a glowing orb was on my face. It was like multiplayer all over again. How'd that Elite anticipate my arrival so quickly? I restarted on Normal difficulty. 

I feared it would get boring on Normal but it didn't and I got off the Pillar of Autumn and crash-landed on the Halo ring. I saved the first batch of soldiers from covenant drop ships, got the Warthog, and then almost died because I supposed, wrongly, that the Warthog would offer me some extra protection from plasma fire. It didn't. Then its bounciness caused me to crash into a gully which I just barely got out of on the edge of a waterfall. My two AI riders waited calmly on the hillside for me probably talking about how the Spartan program was a waste of money. I got the Warthog out of there and we saved all the soldiers that came down in escape pods. 

Next was the sniper mission along the side of a cliff. I quick-scoped a lot of grunts on turrets and fought close combat with Elites and shield-bearers. I got to the top of the hill with the cliff on one side and I lost my footing in the dark while fighting an Elite and fell to my doom. Some super soldier I turned out to be. Bye-bye 6 million dollar cyborg. Sheesh. I thought Mjolnir armor could survive a fall from the atmosphere like in Halo 3. I guess a cliff is more deadly. Next would be Easy difficulty, but I have some pride and ended for now. 

Along the way, I noticed a lot of details I had forgotten about or never paid any attention to before. I think, when my friend and I played, there was always a lot of chatter and noise going on between us, so I couldn't hear the environmental sounds and some of the random comments from the soldiers. Playing alone in a quiet room was a different experience. I noticed soldiers whooped when you jumped the Warthog and underground areas of the Halo ring have eerie atmospheric music that I quite liked. I enjoyed paying attention to details like these for once. 

Next is my second launch game, Airforce Delta Storm by Konami. I've never played it, so it should be interesting, or bad, I'll see.