LOUDS PLAY!
HALO: Combat Evolved Episode 1: Old School Pro
Lori takes Lincoln and Lana down a trip through memory lane as she plays the very first game she'd ever "git gud" at: HALO: Combat Evolved.
"Hey guys, Lori here with Lincoln and Lana, literally back at it with another episode starring us truly." Lori said to the camera facing them as they sat in the living room. Lori was in the middle of the couch with Lincoln to her left and Lana to her right. On screen was the boot-up menu for the console edition of the Master Chief Collection on the campaign selection.
"Hello!"
"Hi!" The two younger siblings greeted the camera with a wave.
"And we're gonna be playing literally one of my all-time favorite games ever," Lori gestured to the screen, "Halo CE. Or Combat Evolved for anyone who's never played it."
As Lori navigated through the main menu to the campaign selection for the first of the Halo games, Lana and Lincoln began to ask some questions.
"I never knew you were such a big Halo fan, Lori! When did you first start playing?" Lincoln asked as he reached over to grab a bag of chips nearby.
"Oh gosh, probably when I was Lana's age. This was literally the first multiplayer game I ever had on my original Xbox back in the mid-2000's. I actually played this game before I got Halo 2." Lori replied, jogging through her memory as she set up the campaign options. She decided to set it to Normal difficulty to make sure her siblings get a good experience while watching her and so she didn't have to feel too pressured while playing. Heroic was how she regularly played, but right now it was all about taking her siblings on the same road she did many moons ago.
"Mom and dad didn't have a fit?" Lana asked, remembering how most Halo games were M-Rated, including Halo CE.
"Nah, not really. Halo's about killing aliens, not much else besides literally driving and flying. They were fine with it, surprisingly." Lori responded as she finished setting up. First mission was the Pillar of Autumn with no score, timer or skulls on. This was going to be a straight-forward playthrough for Lori, and in the Anniversary style graphics to boot. She would change back when she wanted to show them how it was like when she played Halo back then. Lori continued talking, "Literally all of my friends played with me when I had this game. It was a such a party."
"I can imagine. You must have been the coolest kid on the block!" Lana gushed, hearing about how popular Lori was even when she was a little kid. Lori's love of video games already made her cool, but having a history with golden oldies like Halo CE only made her more awesome.
"Darn right I was. You guys ready?" She asked, and her siblings nodded. "Okay, here we go."
She pressed start and the game began.
In the darkness of space hanging in front of a massive gas giant planet lay a ring-shaped installation with a massive field of stars in the background. The soft violin added on to the cutscene's glory as the scene rolled up, revealing a huge bulky gray spaceship. A pair of bright blue engines glowed at its rear surrounded by smaller boosters. On its flank lay in big white letters above the cockpit; PILLAR OF AUTUMN.
"Cortana, all I want to know is did we lose them?"
"I think we both know the answer to that."
The scene transitioned inside the spaceship, revealing an array of colorful holographic screens and the humans manning them. The ship inside was militaristic with white-gray colors. Standing at center was an old man in a gray suit, Captain Jacob Keyes. And he was talking to someone who wasn't there. Physically.
Keyes let out a huff and said, "We made a blind jump. How did they-?"
"Get here first? The Covenant's ships have always been faster. As for tracking us all the way from Reach, at lightspeed my maneuvering options were limited."
The captain made his way over to a console as Cortana kept talking.
"We were running dark, yes?" He asked.
"Until we decelerated. No-one could have missed the hole we tore in subspace." Cortana responded.
Keyes got a good look at the screen in front of him, showing plenty of Covenant ships approaching the Pillar of Autumn.
"They were waiting for us on the far side of the planet." Cortana said.
"The Covenant are the bad guys, right?" Lana asked. Her Halo knowledge was very limited.
"Yep," Lori nodded her head, "We'll be seeing a lot of them pretty soon."
"Ooh." Lana said, turning her attention back to the cutscene.
"So, where do we stand?" Keyes asked as he made his way over back to the command console where a soldier saluted him.
"Our fighters are mopping up the last of their recon picket now, nothing serious. But I've isolated approach signatures from multiple CCS-class battlegroups, make it three capital ships per group. And in about ninety seconds they'll be all over us." Cortana finished with that grim news.
"Well that's it then. Bring the ship back up to combat alert alpha," Keyes said, and klaxons began to blare as soldiers ran to and fro, "I want everyone at their stations."
"Everyone sir?" Cortana wondered.
"Everyone. And Cortana..."
The form of Cortana materialized on the projection module in front of Keyes, revealing a small woman made of blue light.
"Hm?"
"Let's give our old friends a warm welcome."
"I've already begun."
"I like Keyes," Lincoln said, "He's kinda cool for an old dude."
"Cortana's so awesome! You think Lisa would like her?" Lana asked, and Lori scratched her chin.
"Maybe, though there is one character later that she'd probably like more than her." Lori answered, which only made Lana more curious.
"Who is it? C'mon, tell me!" Lana whined as she shook Lori's shoulder, but her older sibling didn't give in.
"Ah ah ah, nope. Sorry, not spoiling it for you. That'd ruin the surprise." Lori said as the cutscene continued.
Lana pouted, but went back to watching the game.
Meanwhile somewhere else on the Pillar of Autumn, the hangar bay was getting locked and loaded. A soldier used light sticks to lead a Pelican dropship on to a cargo hold. There were tanks parked and warthogs driving around, ferrying troops from place to place. In the interior garage there were several marines readying their guns when one of them in a military cap started talking.
"You heard the lady! Move like you've got a purpose!" Sergeant Johnson said, waving his arm around as the troops lined up on either side of him.
"Once again, it is our job to finish what the flyboys started! We are leaving this ship platoon, and are engaging the Covenant on solid ground. When we meet the enemy, we will rip their skulls from their spines, and toss them away, laughing! Am I right, marines?"
"Sir, yes sir!"
"Mmhm. Damn right I am, now move it out! Double time!"
As the marines went, Cortana's voice rang overhead.
"Attention combat personnel, we are reengaging the enemy. External and internal contact imminent."
"All you greenhorns who wanted to see Covenant up close," Johnson cocked his assault rifle, "This is gonna be your lucky day."
In another area, a computer monitor beeped to life. On screen, it said a bunch of military coding, and under it said UNSEAL THE HUSHED CASKET.
"Woah," one crewmen said, "Sure?"
"Right. Let's thaw him out." Said another, overlooking the cryo chambers below from the observation deck.
"Okay, bringing low-level systems online. Cracking the case in thirty seconds."
The camera panned upwards, revealing a chamber that held a soldier clad in olive green armor resting inside. Steam hissed out from the chamber's lid.
"He's hot! Blowing the pins in five!"
The scene transitioned to inside the chamber, where they could hear muffled voices through the glass.
"His tube is clean. Cycle's in the green."
The cryo-tube opened up.
"Sorry for the quick thaw, Master Chief. Things are a little hectic right now. The disorientation should pass quickly."
"Why's he called the Master Chief?" Lana asked. "Is that some sort of army rank that he has?"
"Yep. Here at least in this game it's important. Puts him in charge of anything he needs to." Lori responded.
"Welcome back, sir. We'll have you battle ready stat." The man in the observation room said.
"Chief please look around the room. I need to get a calibration for your battle suit's diagnostics." The game said in the upper left corner to move the right analog stick. After a quick moment of movement the Chief was done. "Good. Thank you, sir."
"I'm bringing your health monitors online sir." On the upper right corner of the screen a line of bars grew horizontally, changing color from red to yellow to blue as the numbers increased from two, six and eight respectively.
"Vital signs look normal. No freezerburn. Okay sir, go ahead and climb out of the cryotube." A cutscene unfolded with the Chief standing to his feet and hopping out of the cryotube, revealing just how tall he was compared to the other workers. "I gave you a double dose of the wake-up stim, take a quick walk around the cryo bay and join me at the optical diagnostics station when you're ready."
On the upper left corner another command popped up that said to move the left analog stick to move, and Chief followed the crewman to the station. After checking his movement and giving an option for inverted controls, the crewman then had the Chief follow him to the shield test generator, which made a long blue bar to form above the health bars as a measure to how much shield Chief had.
"Bridge to cryo bay, this is Captain Keyes. Send the Master Chief to the bridge immediately." Keyes's voice echoed through the hull comms.
"Captain we'll have to skip the weapon diagnostics and-"
"On the double crewman."
"Aye aye, sir. The skipper seems jumpy, we better get moving. We'll find you weapons later."
"What do you mean, later?!" Lana suddenly shot up from her spot on the couch in a fit of anger, now yelling at the Xbox with a pointed hand. "Aren't there a bunch of aliens trying to kill you? Why don't you have guns?!"
"Okay, I'll leave the self diagnostics running at least. Oh god, they're trying to get through the door!"
The door underneath a red klaxon exploded open, and through it came an elite covered in red armor that blasted the crewman with its plasma rifle.
"Security! Intruders in cryo 2! Intru-AGH!"
"See what I mean?"
"No! Sam! C'mon we've got to get the hell out of here!" The Chief followed the crewman out the double sliding door and into a hallway. "This way!"
He followed him to another door on the opposite side of the hallway, but a series of explosions rocked the ship and crushed the doors, killing the unfortunate crewman in front of Chief. Now alone the Chief made his way through the battle-filled ship avoiding plasmafire and explosions as he made his way to the bridge. A lone trooper managed to stop him. Cortana's voice could be heard yelling warnings to the crew about the boarding invaders as well.
"Sir, the captain needs on the bridge ASAP! You better follow me!" The marine, Chips Dubbo, said.
The Chief followed the Marine through the barracks straight to the bridge where Captain Keyes was waiting him. Soon enough he arrived and entered, stopping behind Keyes before talking.
"Captain Keyes."
"Good to see you, Master Chief. Things aren't going well. Cortana did her best but we never really had a chance."
Cortana popped up from the console next to Keyes in her cyan glory.
"A dozen Covenant superior battleships against a single Halcyon-class cruiser, with those odds I'm content with three," she paused for a moment, "make that four kills."
She turned to the Chief.
"Sleep well?"
"No thanks to your driving, yes."
"So you did miss me."
"Wait, does Cortana have a relationship with Chief?" Lana asked, seeing as though the two characters definitely had some chemistry together. "They certainly seem like they like each other, don't they?"
"Indeed they do." Lori nodded. "It's literally one of the best things about this series in my opinion."
"Yeah, until Halo 5 ruined it." Lincoln said with his arms crossed.
"We don't talk about that here, Lincoln."
The ship suddenly lurched with a crunch of metal, and everyone nearly lost their footing.
"Report!" Keyes commanded.
"It must have been one of their boarding parties!" Cortana responded. "I guess an antimatter charge!"
"Ma'am, fire control for the main cannon is offline!"
"Captain, that cannon was my last defensive option!" Cortana said.
"Man, nothing's going right for these guys." Lana chuckled, seeing how deep the Pillar of Autumn's crew were.
"Alright then," Keyes said, "I'm initiating Cole Protocol Article 2, we're abandoning the Autumn. That means you too, Cortana."
"While you do what, go down with the ship?" The AI asked.
"In a matter of speaking. The object we found, I'm gonna try to land the Autumn on it." He gestured towards the Halo Ring on the console screen.
"With all due respect sir, this war has enough dead heroes."
"I appreciate your concern Cortana, but it's not up to me." Keyes responded. "Protocol is clear; capture of a ship-board AI is absolutely unacceptable, and that means you're leaving ship. Lock in a selection of emergency landings, upload them to my neural lace, and then sort yourself for a hard transfer."
"Aye aye, sir." Cortana sounded distressed, and the AI vanished in a flicker of blue light.
"Which is where you come in Chief. Get Cortana off this ship. Keep her safe from the enemy. If they capture her, they'll learn everything. Force development, weapon systems... Earth."
"I understand."
Cortana reappeared again.
"The Autumn will continue evasive maneuvers until you initiate a landing sequence. Not that you'll listen, but I suggest using my subroutines handle the final approach." Cortana said, offering a handy assist.
"Excellent work Cortana. Thank you. Are you ready?"
Cortana looked around the bridge for a moment, before she spoke again with a melancholic sigh.
"Yank me."
Keyes then reached over to pull Cortana's data chip from the holotank and handed it over to the Chief.
"Good luck, Master Chief." He said as the Chief took it, sliding into a port on the back of his helmet.
"Hmm," Cortana hummed, "Your architecture isn't that different from the Autumn's."
"Don't get any funny ideas."
"God, just kiss already, would ya?" Lana humorously said, and she couldn't help but laugh at the interaction between the little blue lady and the massive armored man. It was just so entertaining to hear the banter.
Keyes then handed over his pistol, a magnum, to the Chief.
"I don't keep it loaded, son. You'll have to find ammo as you go."
If one could see very closely, Lana's face almost instantly etched in confusion at what Keyes just said.
"Did he just give you a gun without any ammo? WHY?!" She incredulously shouted, now feeling completely bewildered as she made more hand gestures at the television in a show of annoyance, "What's the actual point of having it if it ain't got any bullets? What would he do if the aliens got here, just beat 'em to death with it like a bat or throw it at them?"
"Nah, he'd go," Lincoln made finger guns and said, with his best imitation of Keyes's elderly voice, "PEW PEW! You're dead, you have to fall down!"
"You mean like if we were playing squirt guns?" Lana laughed, imagining the scene of pretend-playing aliens.
Lori couldn't help but giggle as she made her way through the ship's halls, finding some ammo before confronting the first group of enemies, a trio of grunts. The little aliens stood no chance as Lori popped off three headshots with clear precision, making her way through the ship and to the mess hall where another alien was blasting away, another blue-armored elite with a plasma rifle. Just as she arrived she picked up another gun, the assault rifle, with the clip meter showing a full sixty rounds. She fired away, tearing through the alien's shields before she dropped it with a single shot to the head with the magnum. The alien died roaring, and Lori swapped the assault rifle for the metallic blue plasma rifle, the ammo count showed at the top left corner.
"Wow, you know what you're doing Lori." Lincoln commented, awed at his sister's FPS skill.
"You literally wouldn't believe how many playthroughs I did of this game when I was your age, Lincoln. I could probably do this whole mission with my eyes closed." Lori responded as the Master Chief engaged more enemies near an airlock, revealing the boarding craft inside after she had killed the group of elites and grunts. There were small cubes at the back that Lori picked up, revealing that they were overshields that turned the Chief's shield meter dark red.
"Ooh, nice Lori!" Lana cheered.
Lori continued on with her guns-blazing journey across the Pillar of Autumn, mowing down any alien in her way with the plasma rifle and magnum. The hallways were filled with aliens as she blasted away. After some time, crouching under a half-opened door, she found herself in the middle of a firefight.
"Covenant! On the landing above us!" Cortana exclaimed.
"Oh, this part was literally torture on Legendary." Lori grumbled as she used the central stairwell after hitting more grunt headshots. "You guys think I'm doing good, but this is on Normal. Not exactly a cakewalk, but I've literally played this game so much that I'm used to it now."
"Is Legendary the hardest difficulty?" Lincoln asked.
"Oh yeah. On this game it can be a total nightmare. You'll die instantly if you're not using your head at all times." Lori said to her brother as she continued gunning down more aliens until there were none left. She swapped her plasma rifle for a smaller alien weapon, the plasma pistol. "This thing was my saving grace on my Legendary run."
"Really? Why's that?" Lana spoke up.
"This thing can drop shields instantly. The two pistols were the best combo in the whole game on Legendary." Lori responded. After that battle she found herself reaching a dead end after more life pods ejected and were subsequently destroyed by the Covenant.
"We'll have to use the ship's maintenance access ways. Follow the NAV point, it will lead you to an opening." Cortana said, and a small orange triangle at a gated door. It parted open the moment Chief stepped in front of it, revealing a dark, small hallway. As he made his way into the maintenance corridors, Cortana spoke up again.
"I'm detecting Covenant movement outside the access ways. Activating motion tracker, let's find a safe exit."
The Chief's motion tracker came to life as a large blue circle at the bottom left corner, revealing small red dots that showed nearby enemies. The Chief eventually found a way around them entering a dark room where he busted the door open with a melee attack. There was another large group of Covenant that he encountered and swiftly dealt with a barrage of green plasma and bullets. He rounded another door, down a slope where he could see through the looking glass, which revealed the cryo chamber that was at the start of the level.
"Looks like the Covenant wanted to catch you napping." Cortana said, with the three elites currently down there. After leaving and dealing with more Covenant, he headed into another maintenance way in the scorched, blown up hallway.
"What the-?!" A grunt said before getting shot.
"The little guys speak English?" Lana asked.
"Yeah, but the elites speak gibberish." Lori responded. Lincoln snapped his finger together.
"You mean they say WORT WORT WORT!"
"Yeah that too."
The Chief once again found himself in another fight as the ship was rocked by more explosions.
"The damage to the superstructure is extensive. I don't know how much more abuse the Autumn can take!" Cortana said. He killed more of the aliens before arriving at a barricade that had grenades on them. He tossed two frags at the enemy group, killing them before heading back into another maintenance way.
"There's one last lifeboat! Quickly, get on before it launches!" Cortana exclaimed. And with that, after he had slain all the Covenant, the Chief reached the final pod and another cutscene began to play.
A marine stumbled onto his face as an explosion rocked the ship again.
"Oh no, oh no!" He said, before the Chief picked him up by the back of his armor and tossed him inside the lifeboat.
"Now would be a very good time to leave!" Cortana urgently said after the Chief checked to see if there were any more Covenant. He scurried inside the lifeboat, shutting the door behind him.
"Punch it."
"Aye aye, sir!" The pilot said, slamming down her guidance visor before launching into space. "We're disengaged, going for minimal safe distance!"
"We're gonna make it, aren't we sir?" A panicking marine asked. "I don't wanna die out here!"
The Chief gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder.
"Look!" Cortana said. Chief made his way to the cockpit where the massive Halo ring swung into vision.
"What is that thing, Lieutenant?" A marine asked.
"Hell if I know, but we're landing on it!"
"The Autumn! She's been hit!"
"I knew it!" Cortana exclaimed as the Chief rushed to the back to watch the ship roar past them, struck by a pair of plasma torpedoes. "The Autumn's accelerating, Keyes is going in manual!"
"Heads up everyone, this is it! We're entering the ring's atmosphere in five!"
"Wouldn't you rather take a seat?" Cortana asked.
"We'll be fine." Chief responded as he gripped the side of the lifeboat, bending his knees as the atmosphere shook the tiny pod.
"If I had fingers, they'd be crossed..." Cortana said as the lifepod headed straight into the Ring's atmosphere, revealing that the inner surface had land, oceans and clouds right as the screen faded to black.
"Alright, that's the end of that mission." Lori said, putting down her controller after she left the game screen and turned her Xbox off. She stretched out her back after having been sitting down in hunch for some time. "Wow, that was fun."
"That was quick," Lana said, "You blazed right through it!"
"Well it was the first mission, it's supposed to be super easy." Lori said back, turning to face the camera. "Alright guys, that's the first episode of my Halo series! Hope you all enjoyed and I'll literally see you all next time! Peace!"
"Bye!"
"See ya!" Lincoln waved.
I'm rather sorry for myself about how neglectful I've been to this story. Honestly when I first started writing about HALO CE I didn't realize how dialogue heavy the first mission was. I did put if off for a long while, but since it's October I want to get some scary games in as well so I finally got myself to finish this chapter off.
The next game will be a scary classic!
