Hey guys I decided to play through the entire Halo Franchise for the first time, Thanks to the Master Chief Collection, obviously this didnt include Halo 5, but I wanted to share my experience and review for this franchise here, I put out a post asking people if they'd like to read my thoughts/impressions on the franchise playing for the first time, and a lot of you were interested to hear
Bare in mind this is probably going to be long, this was my first time ever going through these games, I have played Halo 3 multiplayer for a bit back in 2008 but only for a short while, I wanted to experience the franchise and see for myself why Halo was as good as people say, I wanted to form my own opinion on the series so I saw the Master Chief Collection on sale and thought lets do this, so heres my review:
To start im going to run down how I went through these games, I decided to play the games in order of release not order of timeline, all of them on Normal Difficulty, so I started with Halo 1-3 , ODST, Reach, then 4, I wanted to play by order of release because I wanted to see how the gameplay evolved and how hardcore fans experienced the series,
I played the Master Chief Collection on PC with my 144hz monitor, played all the games at 120FPS with maxed out visuals, so my experience visually and performance was solid.
So being on pc I was able to cycle between the remaster anniversary version and the original with a single touch of a button for Halo 1 & 2, which is a phenomenal edition let me just say, like I was literally blown away by this,
I didnt even know it was a feature until I pressed the right button by accident, So I went through Halo 1 & 2 with the remaster but I did cycle to the original for certain parts and areas just to see some of the visual changes and hear how the soundtracks changed, was really amazing to compare
Im going to also divide some general aspects of gameplay from individual game reviews because there are some game aspects that change slightly or not at all that I dont wanna repeat myself while going through the games.
General Franchise Opinions/Gripes/Likes:
Grunts: So I dont necessarily have a big problem with grunts but the fact of the matter is I feel like these guys were just target practice throughout the series, now they did get more threatening and engaging as the games went on, like when they starting suicide bombing or using literal rocket launchers,
but I just dont feel like they are a very unique or fun enemy to fight, I think this boils down to the enemy designs of these games not changing very much which ill touch on a bit later, but some enemies like the grunts I felt got old to shoot at and I was hoping for more new interesting dangers as the games went on
Vehicle Controls/End game escape missions: Gotta be completely honest im not a fan of Halo driving, some might say its just because im bad but I dont see why its good that my warthog should sometimes do a 720 flip for going off a small ramp or running over a dead body,
I can see the vehicle physics being wacky fun for multiplayer but as far as going through a linear level where shits going down and I need to escape ya not a fan, and I was really disappointed that every game had to end with one of these vehicle escape missions, it was just getting old for me personally
Then theres the Banshees, I HATE BANSHEES, I hate when they shoot at me , I hate how they control, I hate how they decend when I just want to aim the camera down to see where Im going, I hate any level involving these things, they are like Tie Fighters if Tie Fighters were being piloted by C3PO, Im sorry for you Banshee fans but I cant stand these things
The Battle Rifle: Ok this is the greatest 3 burst/semi auto weapon ever in video games, I cant tell you how much I love this thing, in nearly every game I was immediately looking for it, Why is this thing so much fun? Ill tell you why,
because it looks cool, It feels powerful and it is powerful, this weapon is pinnacle Halo combat right here and for good reason, if I imagine halo gunplay this is the gun I immediately picture, bravo bungie Id put this weapon right next to the Doom double barrel shotgun of iconic weapons in games
Plasma Pistol: this thing is as bad as it sounds, Idk why bungie kept this weapon for so long, I guess they needed something weak for grunts to use but my god is it so boring and pathetic, I really wish they scrapped this thing by Halo 3 but nope its in every game :) ,
seriously does anyone actually purposely want to use this thing? the marine pistol is actually pretty great it most of the games and feels pretty good but the plasma pistol is like trying to kill a bear with a nerf dart
Music: I would go as far to say that even the soundtrack alone is enough to get into this series, my god I dont know a whole lot about the development of these games and who was the composer, but whoever created the music for this franchise deserves all the praise,
the music is a masterpiece, I cant tell you how many times I was just in awe at the soundtrack, whenever the choir would play I would just stop and look at the beautiful landscapes, was truly an emotional roller coaster
The AI: Im honestly amazed at how good the AI is for these games, I did have a few weird hiccups in some games but overall the marine and enemy AI was solid and made for a much more enjoyable experience
Halo Combat Evolved:
So like I said I played through Halo 1 & 2 with the remaster and cycled to the original just to see the differences for some areas but would ultimately play anniversary version, and Halo 1 I gotta say visually I thought the remaster when comparing was slightly too far from the original, idk how to put it, I know 343 worked on the remasters not bungie,
but it just felt kind of a betrayal of bungies vision for some areas when comparing. I played with the anniversary visuals because I did feel overall I kinda wanted a new coat of paint but some areas genuinely looked more aesthetically pleasing in the original
I knew being an old game I was going to have to deal with some old school level design and areas, which I was totally prepared for, this wouldn't be the first time I went back and played a very old game for the first time, the intro for halo 1 I honestly thought was amazing, they did an excellent job introducing me to this world immediately,
letting the weapons training be pushed right into a covenant breach is brilliant, hell even modern games cant get tutorials right by making you do boring target practice like in cod or something,
fighting the covenant felt pretty good, the elites are tough and always feel threatening while the grunts are literally target practice but if you ignore them they can take advantage and chip away at your health, gameplay for most part in halo 1 still holds up surprisingly well,
Master Chief is a total bad ass suit of armor, the characters make you feel like you are the best they've got at handling a situation, the missions were well paced and I was really enjoying Halo 1 and was realizing how why this game put xbox on the map, then I got to the halfway point and oh boy
Now when going through this game I was expecting to fight the covenant the whole way, but I was completely caught off guard by this new enemy type, The Flood, when they were first introduced I was genuinely immersed and creeped out, like holy shit these things actually had a pretty scary introduction, however...
I decided to save this for my Halo 1 review instead of my general topics, a lot of you may know where Im going with this, but I hate The Flood, Im sorry but the Library mission guys was awful like holy shit what were they thinking with this,
this mission alone made me hate The Flood, and also made me realize how awful of an enemy by design alone they are for Halo, fighting them made the grunts looked brilliantly designed, they literally stuck zombies and face huggers in halo,
is this a completely bad idea? not really, but when you literally throw 5000 of them at me while this bot opens the same door 20 times I really started getting frustrated, like the covenant made me feel like I was playing halo, fighting an alien race that had their own political views,
but The Flood are just so stupid, they are just zombies that are spongie af, and the face huggers are so annoying to aim at jesus these guys almost broke me, eventually I got passed the library, the sentinel enemies were pretty annoying too but I couldnt complain after fighting The Flood,
The end mission of Halo was just ok and the final stretch on the warthog was as janky as ever, the 2nd half of halo 1 really showed its age for me, I still enjoyed my time with it overall and appreciate it for what it is , but I dont think Id come back to it,
Halo 2:
Im just gonna say it right off the bat, Halo 2... is... the best Halo game in the series no fucking question, this game for I wanna say 95% of the way was a complete masterpiece, and I also gotta give props to 343 for the anniversary, because the visual upgrade in this game looks incredible, The original looks amazing as well for its time,
I might just replay the entire game again only original look, but the particle effects, guns sounds, visual effects are outstanding, I will say some areas in the original look like Halo 1 I thought were aesthetically better, but theres no way I wasn't playing in the anniversary first,
I even realized that all the cutscenes in the game were remade for the anniversary, and after I beat the game I watched a comparison video of the cutscenes and rewatched all of them with the original look on youtube, but the remade cutscenes look INSANE, like wow im so blown away at what 343 did,
but ya Halo 2 the story on its own I thought was easily the best story in the franchise, the beginning seeing the mirror reflection of the 2 sides of the 2 main characters was brilliant, how Master Chief was being awarded while Arbiter is shamed and deprived of his titles, amazing story telling,
I didnt know how I was going to feel about Arbiter at first not playing as Chief for some parts, but Keith David who voices him did such an amazing job at making you love this character
The gameplay was a of course a huge imrpovement, the battle rifle is introduced and is immediately my favorite weapon, the energy sword is also introduced, finally you can slash away like a true elite, The missions Halo 2 were really well balanced with a nice mix of ground game and vehicle,
The flood does return in this game which I wasnt happy at all however they arent completely swarming you like halo 1 and didnt hinder my enjoyment of the game so I was able to tolerate having them, I say 95% of this game is a masterpiece because of my biggest complaint of this game which is the ending...
Now I did some digging and found that halo 2 went through some tough time constraints, which is why the ending is what it is, but it really felt like the game need 1 or 2 more missions as Master Chief to wrap it up, but instead we get a cliff hangar, kinda disappointing but even still was a godlike story,
I also gotta say the defend johnson mission before the final fight is awful and I hated it, this was the mission that made me hate banshees, and the final fight I thought was gonna be tough but I merked Tartarus so fast I didnt realized I killed the boss until the cutscene played lol kinda anti climatic but man this game was so good
Halo 2 easily my favorite game of the collection, I think im definitely going to replay it
Ill try to make these next ones shorter
Halo 3:
This is the game where I truly believe bungie perfected their craft in terms of gameplay, seriously they nailed the gameplay in Halo 3, I would argue Halo 3 easily has the best feeling gunplay and combat, I would also argue possibly has the best soundtrack in the series, visually Halo 3 still looks amazing and whats funny is playing the anniversary of Halo 2,
going into Halo 3 was actually a visual downgrade for me lol so it kinda felt like I went from a newer game to an older game visually, but gameplay wise Halo 3 was perfection
Brutes taking over the role of elites was a little weird for me ill admit, I understand story wise but I felt this was an opportunity to really make brutes stand out on their own but they literally just kinda take the elite role gameplay wise as well which is a little disappointing but if it aint broke dont fix it I guess,
a lot of awesome new additions are added that I love like detaching turrets and going 3rd person is pretty sick, new weapons and special items to use like the bubble shield are really cool, I remember in Halo 2 when I saw that Arbiter gets the camouflage I thought thats so cool why doesnt chief have something unique like that? instead he gets this wimpy flashlight, but Halo 3 fixes that instantly
in terms of story I did feel the campaign was a little short and it wasnt nearly as good as Halo 2 but it had its moments and overall Halo 3 is phenomenal imo, It really felt like an epic conclusion to a trilogy... that is until
Halo 3 ODST:
I CANT SEE SHIT!
no foreal why is this game so dark, ok so im going to be brutally honest here, I really didnt like ODST, and heres the crazy part, while I was playing Halo 2 I was literally telling myself how cool a spinoff playing as a group of marines would be, and then BOOM ODST! ,
now I have structural problems with this game as well as a ton of gameplay ones just hear me out before you kill me, I feel like this game doesnt even know what its trying to be let me explain,
when I first started the game you are introduced to the team so im immediately thinking yes this is so bad ass, we are going to experience a squad story, possibly 4 player co op with this where each person plays as a marine right? some left 4 dead style campaign where we can run through the game together and every co op partner is probably part of the story right? WRONG, I played the game single player but it became blatantly obvious very soon that wasnt it.
I even looked up who the co op partner plays as and apparently is just a no name marine or a clone of Rookie, such a missed opportunity imo,
so you go through the dark mombasa streets as the Rookie trying to find out what happened to the rest of the team, now right off the bat, you have a mini map now which is interesting so Im think oooohhh so is this going to be a halo spin of a metroidvania style game? where im backtracking these streets? opening new areas and finding secrets? nope just big map for no reason just to go to my waypoint in whats really a linear objective,
I cant see shit but I have detective mode now so I guess Im playing the entire game like in detective mode? Ok why is the mombasa streets so dark, I really dont get it,
Like I understand if they want to give you that sense of dread silent loneliness for these parts which is cool and it does work well at times with its beautiful soundtrack, but it really does not need to be pitch black to immerse me like that,
theres been so many games that nail that feeling without completely blinding the player, and whats the point of it if im just gonna use detective mode anyway? Im basically now experiencing the streets with a virtual metal gear solid vr mission aesthetic now instead of the dark gloomy atmosphere you were going for right?
so everytime you find an object relating to a member you then play out what happened as that other marine in regular halo mission action, only now you arent a spartan you are a marine, now this is where ODST hinders its gameplay through its own self indulgence, now being a marine means you arent the super soldier you were before,
so the ODST devs took this way too literally and decided to take away shields and make you take damage just like a call of duty guy, this is fine and all but now you are not only blinded by pitch black areas, your screen goes completely red when taking 1 or 2 shots, im fine with red screens
but ODST red screen is awful, you literally can barely see and I dont understand why if Im a marine it means this has to impede on the gameplay so much, gameplay and logic can be separated for a more enjoyable experience and ODST ignores this, why do I die so fast when health and damage was literally perfected in Halo 3?
Think of it this way, can one of the marines really take down a brute with just melee? in gameplay you can because it wouldnt be fun if you couldnt, but logical the marines wouldnt stand a chance in a fist fight to a brute, but the gameplay still allows you too, but for some reason I die way faster because logic says im not a spartan anymore so it impedes on the fun gameplay that was in halo 3
story wise I thought it was pretty meh tbh, I read some comments saying ODST has the best story but I strongly disagree , I think the way its told is definitely unique to Halo but it different doesnt always mean good, if I were to make this game I would of made it about the team together going through a mission like L4D,
not saying be a zombie game but let the story be more focused on the team together and not the individuals, and there are parts where the game does do that and you could of had cool moments playing co op where each player plays a marine but nope even if you did do co op for those missions, the other player is just a generic clone while the rest of the marines in the story are npc's
ODST is a huge missed opportunity imo and tbh I thought was the worst one in the MCC sorry ODST fans
Halo Reach:
ok so you know how I just said I wanted a story focused on the team well Reach is basically that only it falls short from going the whole way with it by having it be another solo mission story really, the main character Six is the hero and we basically just play the game in his pov, if you do co op its the same as ODST the co op partner just plays a clone of Six essentially instead of doing 4 player co op and each player controls a spartan from the story, another missed opportunity at my idea for a Bad Batch style Co op campaign experience, however...
I fucking loved Halo Reach
this game is amazing, even though its not entirely what I wanted, its brilliant from beginning to end, the first mission immersed me like no other first mission in the series, going through the grasslands with the squad was so bad ass,
the music was amazing as always, the guns were even more improved on, the battle rifle became a semi auto which I thought I wouldnt like at first but I was still in love with it, also SPRINT!? HOW DARE THEY PUT SPRINT!? IN HALO! nah im kidding,
sprint was actually pretty cool the way they added it being a item to equip although I found myself using that or the jetpack the most, the environments also in Reach are amazing, the visuals are very impressive, but the best thing about this game is
the attention to fucking detail
holy shit yall , this game added so much detail its insane, from the gun sounds to animations, the way enemy hit detection is was better than any game, you could literally shoot a jackal in the leg and watch them go on 1 knee, its amazing, shooting a grunt in the back makes their gas tank go out of control and sends them flying in the air crashing down like COME ON! this shit is amazing
the final mission was an so sad, I was fighting so hard I didnt wanna die! lol when the objective just said SURVIVE and I was getting overrun I was getting chills, amazing game overall Id easily put this up as bungies most refined halo game, great game to end their run with the franchise
Halo 4:
I wasnt going to play this one at first hearing it being very divisive and all, but a lot of you convinced me to give it a shot so I did,
So the first game by 343 , my expectations were low af, the beginning of this game I was really not liking what I was playing, this did not feel like Halo at all, the beginning felt like I was playing a presentation of gameplay at e3 or something, it was too cinematic for me, chief was literally climbing a ladder avoiding falling debree, then fighting covenant in space, like wtf was this intro
also minor gripe, why the hell did they change chiefs design, he went into the chamber and came out with new armor!? that just makes no sense, atleast start him out in the halo 3 armor and give him new armor after or something,
so Halo 4 gunplay was really strange to me, it almost felt like a call of duty team made this game, if that makes any sense, also felt like there was an over abundance of weapons in this game, like when you have so many guns a lot of them just start to feel the same,
while the other games have a nice balance of weapons, but Halo 4 literally has 3 snipers like what for? each one kills in 1 to 2 shots so why do we need 3 different types?
as I kept playing thought I was enjoying the game more and more, I honestly came to like the Prometheans, I felt they were a nice fresh new enemy that we never really got that I was hoping for,
it did start to get old fighting the same enemies over and over but HALO 4 doesnt stop itself from bringing back the same old covenant enemies anyway lol whats funny is I feel the covenant are even worse in this one, like the grunts in halo 4 are terrible and I dont know why they feel worse to fight,
also why are the elites back? I was so confused all cortana gave us was " a lot can change in 4 years" so you basically just didnt want to explain 343 you just wanted to bring the elites back? nice one!
I kinda wish Halo 4 just stuck with the Prometheans the whole way instead of bringing in the covenant who eventually fight for them anyway, like you could of just added 3 more promethean enemy types that act like the old enemies (grunts,elites,jackals) and thats it, it really made no sense to me
I actually did enjoy some of the new Promethean weapons but others felt unnecessary, like I said too many weapons,
also why is the marine shotgun god awful in this, not even talking about damage im talking about how it feels, this thing has no kick or impact to it, and the promethean one basically acts the same way like whats the point of having both? could of been a cool opportunity to maybe make the promethean shotgun a double barrel or full auto but no it literally acts exactly the same
Story wise I felt this game was taking itself a little too seriously, cortana is thick now so that means she has to cry more so you can care for her when all im doing is staring at her ass, thats one way to make me care I guess, Chief talks a lot more now which is kinda off putting but ill role with it, the ending was definitely trying to take Halo in a different direction, Idk if im ok with this or not but it definitely felt like a different game
overall I still had some fun with it, I did enjoy it more than ODST and the Library ill tell you that lol
Wrap-up
thanks for reading, I know that was long, but I wanted to share my thoughts playing this franchise for the first time with the community, overall just wanna see this series is absolutely amazing, I had an absolute blast playing it, after Halo 4 I literally felt empty completing them all, like dam what a fucking ride
If you have any questions feel free to ask , if you wanna know how'd I'd rank the games id go
Halo 2
Halo 3
Halo Reach
Halo Combat Evolved
Halo 4
Halo ODST cant see edition
Submitted by BendersMilk | #Specialdealer Special Offer Online Shopping Store 2016
