Halo system link still holds up more than 20 years later

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

I remembered why wires are good moments after I stepped onto the legendary Blood Gulch map and died from a few well- placed pistol shots.

When my friends brought two original Xbox consoles along for a beach weekend, I was expecting some trouble getting them to work for our six-player matches. The game and consoles have been around for more than 20 years. Just a few minutes after setting up the consoles and connecting them for system link play, we plugged in some controllers, made a lobby, and started talking to each other.

Modern games have a lot of hoops, but Combat Evolved was simple to play. Take a look at the video game. I play the game on the PS5 while my wife plays it on the Switch, but we don't play online together. We have to start the game, wait for the game to load, download any necessary updates, party up, and then wait a bit for the match to start. We can go to the island. I spend a lot of time tapping my foot because the process doesn't take long.

The system link was much faster than the halo over it. One group would make a lobby that the other would join, then the lobby-maker would decide the rules of the game, and the match would start. It's something I now want in every local game, and it's something you can do in halo.

It takes longer to start a match with online games. The infrastructure that allows you to play games with anyone across the world is going to require more time to make sure that everyone is connected. It was great to be able to play a game immediately after sitting down to play.

It wasn't just the networking that benefited from a wired connection. We wanted to play a few Smash Bros. Ultimate matches later in the weekend, but I had to connect controllers to my console. A couple people were stuck using a single Joy-Con because there was a limit to how many controllers could be connected to the switch. All of the controllers had charged batteries. I would have thrown the controllers on the floor if they didn't.

Everyone was able to play with the three wired controllers we plugged into the consoles.

There will be other ways to play games in the future and things weren't perfect. We had to use a paperclip to open the tray on one of the consoles. I had to rest my controller on my legs to make sure the wire wouldn't get disconnected. It is a daily ritual for me to complete the challenges with my wife.

It was nice to have an experience with a game and consoles that are more than two decades old. It's helped that I had a few good friends to play with.