Note - this review is purely about the campaign, not the multiplayer
Played as part of The Master Chief Collection
Halo is the FPS that modernized the first person genre, taking concepts sprung by Doom, GoldenEye, and Half-Life and coagulating them into a thoroughly-ergonomic package. Combined with a cool space gimmick, bad-ass hero, and top-notch multiplayer servers, and it’s no secret why the Xbox managed to snag a piece of the video game market all those years ago: Halo was that novel.
In 2011, 343 Industries published a remaster to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the original’s release, with this version subsequently being included in the 2014 Master Chief Collection: and seeing as how that was the copy I played, I figured it was worth writing a review to ascertain just how well Bungie’s classic has aged in the story department.
Well, as revolutionary as Halo was at the time, the unfortunate reality is it ain’t all that good now. Courtesy of later titles like Call of Duty, Far Cry, Crysis, and of course Halo’s own sequels, we’ve seen the kinds of intricate campaigns FPS’s are capable of achieving when sufficiently funded. The problem with Halo’s story is that, all too often, it feels like it was strung out of the scraps of the multiplayer rather than existing as something specially-crafted, and while that wouldn’t have been inherently bad, a severe case of repetition stifles things for good.
See, Halo’s campaign primarily swaps between two halves, environmental assaults and interior shootouts, and it’ll only take a few missions before you realize just how repetitive both of them get.…particularly the latter -- I’m not kidding when I tell you guys that the developers rehash the same 3-4 rooms & hallways ad nauseam, and not only does it get tiring killing the same foes on repeat for hours on end, but exploration is rendered outright frustrating courtesy of a severe lack of objective markers(+). Exteriors fare better in light of their wide-open spaces, but even these are setback by monotonous vehicular combat against alien turrets, tanks, and speeders: combat that quickly loses its appeal the second you realize just how idiotic your allied AI is (more on that later).
In case you were hoping the actual narrative would ameliorate things, you’d be mistaken - Halo borrows heavily from sci-fi classics like Star Wars, Alien, and 2001, but fails to add anything interesting to the mix, its premise entailing a galactic war between humanity and a race of ETs known as the The Covenant. In Combat Evolved, a singular battle between the two spills over onto the eponymous ringworld, yet one of the things you’ll find consistently frustrating about Halo is how little it explains its lore: who the Covenant are, the origins of your protagonist Master Chief, how your crew conveniently warped to Halo, and why the conflict even started is privy to guesswork courtesy of the writers not being interested in explaining any of it.
In fact, in the initial release, those kinds of open questions extended to additional facets of the game, including the history of Halo and the looming Guilty Spark’s presence, and while they’ve been addressed here, that resolution owes fealty to a mixed bag of an answer: exposition dumps ala accessible terminals strewn throughout each level. They’re a theoretically fine solution, but where things go wrong is in how long they drag and drag: there are literally multiple times per a video where it would’ve been natural for the log to finish, only for it to continue meandering on for minutes on end, and when you combine that with the narrator's atrocious voice (more on that later), you can bet a good part of me was actually relieved no further creations were done for the other plot holes.
Without digestible lore or cogent storytelling, Halo’s campaign fundamentally turns into a boring experience, and it’s a shame because, even within this limited template, they had the perfect method to spice things up: banter between Master Chief & his virtual assistant Cortana(++). Voiced by Steve Downes and Jen Taylor respectively, the two boast excellent chemistry you’re unfortunately restricted to hearing during select cutscenes only, and while I understand Bungie deliberately culled most of Chief’s dialogue for the sake of immersion, I can’t help finding it to be a missed opportunity. There are some genuinely humorous interactions between the two characters, and to see such good camaraderie wasted over the Silent Protagonist Pit is disappointing to say the least.
Voice acting, overall, is of a general high quality, even among the Red Shirt goons who make-up the bulk of your squad -- the ADR directors did a surprisingly good job imbuing them with the sense of a lived-in team who’ve been through hell over the years, and that facet goes a long way towards lacing those pre-battle banters with a tinge of genuine excitement. I do wish some additional lines had been recorded for the innumerable Covenant you face as hearing the same growls and evil laughter did get old by the halfway mark.
Still, the one thing holding back Halo’s cast is the aforementioned Guilty Spark, a sentient drone serving as the maintenance ward for the ring station, as he has one of the most annoying voices ever conceived in gaming. Picture a stereotypical nerd doing an impression of Claptrap from Borderlands and you’ll have an idea as to the ear bleed you’re forced to endure every time this monstrosity rears its ugly head. I honestly don’t understand why serious games opt to sabotage their foundation in favor of half-baked comic relief characters, but so it’s happened here and you’re just going to have to suck it up(+++).
With regards to the SFX, the Anniversary edition refurbished everything from the ground-up, and I honestly have no complaints. Courtesy of the ability to swap between versions, you’ll realize just how softened the vanilla Halo was, thus making the additional volume boosts to conventional and unconventional firearms here all the more appreciable. Inclement weather, as far as I could tell, is lacking, and the engine noise surrounding the Warthog is standard V8 stuff, but those aren’t going to detract from your overarching experience.
Martin O'Donnell & Michael Salvatori’s score was refurbished for the Anniversary Edition by Paul Lipson, Lennie Moore, Tom Salta, and Brian Trifon, and though I’ve heard complaints that some tracks were “ruined” during transcription, I personally found the overall OST to be great, cross-mixing that military sci-fi sound of patriotic overtures with alien undertones, the end result being a medley of orchestral motifs, operatic vocals, and synth beats respectively(++++). Now to clarify, Halo’s OST doesn’t QUITE exhibit as much of the latter as the former, no doubt because you’re usually engaged in combat scenarios; however, what’s interesting are the number of unused songs found in the game’s code that WERE more in-line with the space civilization motif, making me wonder what the motivation was for their removal. Besides that, my only real complaint is how much the game repeats its action theme across multiple tracks -- this does dissipate the longer you stay with things, but it is unfortunately noticeable early-on.
Graphically, there’s not much I can say that hasn’t already been stated a dozen times over: 343 truly went all out. This is one of those rare instances where the ability to compare & contrast visuals between games is available in real time, and seeing the amount of work 343’s artisans put into refreshing terrain with detailed foliage, remodeling characters with extra polygons, and outright redoing the lighting inside darkened ships was truly spectacular to witness.
Interestingly, not everything about the original has aged poorly: in fact, I actually preferred certain assets like boulders, laser beams, and planetary vistas from it due to the focus on realism over stylization. There are also times where the Anniversary Edition overindulges in colored lighting, throwing oodles upon oodles of purple/blue gradients at you when the OG’s blackscale was far more befitting for the dreary setting, though I understand this is subject to debate.
That aside, the animation work deserves particular focus for boasting a number of unique facets present even in the vanilla CE: first are the ragdoll physics for explosion-ridden bodies and debris; second are the coding of different melee strikes contingent on the weapon being held; and third are the blood splatter effects from gunned-down aliens. Really, my only objective complaint would be certain enemy types evaporating into confetti upon death due to it looking a bit cheap, but that’s small potatoes in the long run.
What isn’t small potatoes, however, is the gameplay, which is where Halo truly drops the ball. I already ranted about the level design earlier, but the first thing you’re liable to witnessing before even getting to that is the weird default control scheme -- I won’t go too in-depth since remapping is available from the get-go, but just know that some of those initial bindings are bizarre even by non-CoD standards.
Next are a couple of movement quandaries: there is no sprint function (the game instead goading you into hopscotching everywhere) and the Warthog controls are as bad as their reputation implies (the issue being that acceleration is keyed to pushing the joystick forward rather than a separate button from turning).
Third, the vast majority of firearms cannot be aimed down sights, with players instead having to rely on hip-based crosshairs. This isn’t gamebreaking by any means, but the allocation is definitely strange (i.e., pistols having one, but not assault rifles).
Fourth, grenades have a bunch of defects: there is no indicator for adjacent ones, you cannot throw back loose ones, and sticky bombs are guaranteed deaths.
Fifth, weapons are strewn with a number of odd decisions, such as reloading sapping an entire mag’s worth of ammo rather than just the deficient amount; missions not letting you carryover weapons, and lasers lacking replenishable cartridges.
Lastly, quality-of-life issues persist if you try to play co-op: using a guest profile resets any keybindings done beforehand,Ready player one has to navigate pause menus even if initiated by Player Two; you can only continue from the beginning of chapters rather than checkpoints within said chapters, and (more of a hack than a problem) killing you or your partner yields an unlimited supply of lootable armaments for exploitation purposes.
Don’t get me wrong, it runs butter smooth, the general shooting is fine, and the scope of Halo should never be understated -- this is a 2001 title that not only featured open-ended levels, but fully operational transportation for multiplayer use. I love how different enemies are susceptible to different guns, the variety of weaponry at your disposal, the craftsmanship behind the Covenants’ models, and the general kinetic framing of firefights. It’s just a pity these aspects are shoveled into an, at times, unimaginative framework exhibited by outright boneheaded decisions: one stage has you clear a bridge….only to then have to clear another bridge; several parts entail you having to backtrack across multiple planes you previously explored; and need I even say anything about the infamous Library of Halo scorn? Heck, none of these live up to the headache that is the final challenge, a driving-focused endeavor that’ll make you yearn for Mass Effect 1’s Mako voyaging.
As such, while everyone is of course encouraged to formulate their own opinions, I can’t personally recommend the original Halo.
NOTES
+Before the retro gamers come out of the woodwork with their pitchforks, no, I’m not saying an objective marker was necessary (though it is worth pointing out that Cortana will occasionally generate one for you should you dawdle around too long), but considering you’re not granted a minimap or any kind of verbal clues to dictate your direction, and considering further that several missions do contain a quest compass, having the option to toggle one doesn’t seem too farfetched to ask.
++Cortana’s been given a grand makeover that comes with a pair of C-cup breasts. As much as I want to laugh at 343 for sexing up an AI figure, perhaps they should instead be praised for predicting what would happen with vocaloid mascots and VIs decades later .
+++For the record, Guilty Spark’s characterization itself is fine, revolving around a piece of ancient machinery developing amoral sapience. Some have projected religious themes onto it, but I feel the endeavor is pointless in view of his annoyance.
++++Special shout out to Cloaked in Blackness in particular!
Played as part of The Master Chief Collection
Halo is the FPS that modernized the first person genre, taking concepts sprung by Doom, GoldenEye, and Half-Life and coagulating them into a thoroughly-ergonomic package. Combined with a cool space gimmick, bad-ass hero, and top-notch multiplayer servers, and it’s no secret why the Xbox managed to snag a piece of the video game market all those years ago: Halo was that novel.
In 2011, 343 Industries published a remaster to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the original’s release, with this version subsequently being included in the 2014 Master Chief Collection: and seeing as how that was the copy I played, I figured it was worth writing a review to ascertain just how well Bungie’s classic has aged in the story department.
Well, as revolutionary as Halo was at the time, the unfortunate reality is it ain’t all that good now. Courtesy of later titles like Call of Duty, Far Cry, Crysis, and of course Halo’s own sequels, we’ve seen the kinds of intricate campaigns FPS’s are capable of achieving when sufficiently funded. The problem with Halo’s story is that, all too often, it feels like it was strung out of the scraps of the multiplayer rather than existing as something specially-crafted, and while that wouldn’t have been inherently bad, a severe case of repetition stifles things for good.
See, Halo’s campaign primarily swaps between two halves, environmental assaults and interior shootouts, and it’ll only take a few missions before you realize just how repetitive both of them get.…particularly the latter -- I’m not kidding when I tell you guys that the developers rehash the same 3-4 rooms & hallways ad nauseam, and not only does it get tiring killing the same foes on repeat for hours on end, but exploration is rendered outright frustrating courtesy of a severe lack of objective markers(+). Exteriors fare better in light of their wide-open spaces, but even these are setback by monotonous vehicular combat against alien turrets, tanks, and speeders: combat that quickly loses its appeal the second you realize just how idiotic your allied AI is (more on that later).
In case you were hoping the actual narrative would ameliorate things, you’d be mistaken - Halo borrows heavily from sci-fi classics like Star Wars, Alien, and 2001, but fails to add anything interesting to the mix, its premise entailing a galactic war between humanity and a race of ETs known as the The Covenant. In Combat Evolved, a singular battle between the two spills over onto the eponymous ringworld, yet one of the things you’ll find consistently frustrating about Halo is how little it explains its lore: who the Covenant are, the origins of your protagonist Master Chief, how your crew conveniently warped to Halo, and why the conflict even started is privy to guesswork courtesy of the writers not being interested in explaining any of it.
In fact, in the initial release, those kinds of open questions extended to additional facets of the game, including the history of Halo and the looming Guilty Spark’s presence, and while they’ve been addressed here, that resolution owes fealty to a mixed bag of an answer: exposition dumps ala accessible terminals strewn throughout each level. They’re a theoretically fine solution, but where things go wrong is in how long they drag and drag: there are literally multiple times per a video where it would’ve been natural for the log to finish, only for it to continue meandering on for minutes on end, and when you combine that with the narrator's atrocious voice (more on that later), you can bet a good part of me was actually relieved no further creations were done for the other plot holes.
Without digestible lore or cogent storytelling, Halo’s campaign fundamentally turns into a boring experience, and it’s a shame because, even within this limited template, they had the perfect method to spice things up: banter between Master Chief & his virtual assistant Cortana(++). Voiced by Steve Downes and Jen Taylor respectively, the two boast excellent chemistry you’re unfortunately restricted to hearing during select cutscenes only, and while I understand Bungie deliberately culled most of Chief’s dialogue for the sake of immersion, I can’t help finding it to be a missed opportunity. There are some genuinely humorous interactions between the two characters, and to see such good camaraderie wasted over the Silent Protagonist Pit is disappointing to say the least.
Voice acting, overall, is of a general high quality, even among the Red Shirt goons who make-up the bulk of your squad -- the ADR directors did a surprisingly good job imbuing them with the sense of a lived-in team who’ve been through hell over the years, and that facet goes a long way towards lacing those pre-battle banters with a tinge of genuine excitement. I do wish some additional lines had been recorded for the innumerable Covenant you face as hearing the same growls and evil laughter did get old by the halfway mark.
Still, the one thing holding back Halo’s cast is the aforementioned Guilty Spark, a sentient drone serving as the maintenance ward for the ring station, as he has one of the most annoying voices ever conceived in gaming. Picture a stereotypical nerd doing an impression of Claptrap from Borderlands and you’ll have an idea as to the ear bleed you’re forced to endure every time this monstrosity rears its ugly head. I honestly don’t understand why serious games opt to sabotage their foundation in favor of half-baked comic relief characters, but so it’s happened here and you’re just going to have to suck it up(+++).
With regards to the SFX, the Anniversary edition refurbished everything from the ground-up, and I honestly have no complaints. Courtesy of the ability to swap between versions, you’ll realize just how softened the vanilla Halo was, thus making the additional volume boosts to conventional and unconventional firearms here all the more appreciable. Inclement weather, as far as I could tell, is lacking, and the engine noise surrounding the Warthog is standard V8 stuff, but those aren’t going to detract from your overarching experience.
Martin O'Donnell & Michael Salvatori’s score was refurbished for the Anniversary Edition by Paul Lipson, Lennie Moore, Tom Salta, and Brian Trifon, and though I’ve heard complaints that some tracks were “ruined” during transcription, I personally found the overall OST to be great, cross-mixing that military sci-fi sound of patriotic overtures with alien undertones, the end result being a medley of orchestral motifs, operatic vocals, and synth beats respectively(++++). Now to clarify, Halo’s OST doesn’t QUITE exhibit as much of the latter as the former, no doubt because you’re usually engaged in combat scenarios; however, what’s interesting are the number of unused songs found in the game’s code that WERE more in-line with the space civilization motif, making me wonder what the motivation was for their removal. Besides that, my only real complaint is how much the game repeats its action theme across multiple tracks -- this does dissipate the longer you stay with things, but it is unfortunately noticeable early-on.
Graphically, there’s not much I can say that hasn’t already been stated a dozen times over: 343 truly went all out. This is one of those rare instances where the ability to compare & contrast visuals between games is available in real time, and seeing the amount of work 343’s artisans put into refreshing terrain with detailed foliage, remodeling characters with extra polygons, and outright redoing the lighting inside darkened ships was truly spectacular to witness.
Interestingly, not everything about the original has aged poorly: in fact, I actually preferred certain assets like boulders, laser beams, and planetary vistas from it due to the focus on realism over stylization. There are also times where the Anniversary Edition overindulges in colored lighting, throwing oodles upon oodles of purple/blue gradients at you when the OG’s blackscale was far more befitting for the dreary setting, though I understand this is subject to debate.
That aside, the animation work deserves particular focus for boasting a number of unique facets present even in the vanilla CE: first are the ragdoll physics for explosion-ridden bodies and debris; second are the coding of different melee strikes contingent on the weapon being held; and third are the blood splatter effects from gunned-down aliens. Really, my only objective complaint would be certain enemy types evaporating into confetti upon death due to it looking a bit cheap, but that’s small potatoes in the long run.
What isn’t small potatoes, however, is the gameplay, which is where Halo truly drops the ball. I already ranted about the level design earlier, but the first thing you’re liable to witnessing before even getting to that is the weird default control scheme -- I won’t go too in-depth since remapping is available from the get-go, but just know that some of those initial bindings are bizarre even by non-CoD standards.
Next are a couple of movement quandaries: there is no sprint function (the game instead goading you into hopscotching everywhere) and the Warthog controls are as bad as their reputation implies (the issue being that acceleration is keyed to pushing the joystick forward rather than a separate button from turning).
Third, the vast majority of firearms cannot be aimed down sights, with players instead having to rely on hip-based crosshairs. This isn’t gamebreaking by any means, but the allocation is definitely strange (i.e., pistols having one, but not assault rifles).
Fourth, grenades have a bunch of defects: there is no indicator for adjacent ones, you cannot throw back loose ones, and sticky bombs are guaranteed deaths.
Fifth, weapons are strewn with a number of odd decisions, such as reloading sapping an entire mag’s worth of ammo rather than just the deficient amount; missions not letting you carryover weapons, and lasers lacking replenishable cartridges.
Lastly, quality-of-life issues persist if you try to play co-op: using a guest profile resets any keybindings done beforehand,
Don’t get me wrong, it runs butter smooth, the general shooting is fine, and the scope of Halo should never be understated -- this is a 2001 title that not only featured open-ended levels, but fully operational transportation for multiplayer use. I love how different enemies are susceptible to different guns, the variety of weaponry at your disposal, the craftsmanship behind the Covenants’ models, and the general kinetic framing of firefights. It’s just a pity these aspects are shoveled into an, at times, unimaginative framework exhibited by outright boneheaded decisions: one stage has you clear a bridge….only to then have to clear another bridge; several parts entail you having to backtrack across multiple planes you previously explored; and need I even say anything about the infamous Library of Halo scorn? Heck, none of these live up to the headache that is the final challenge, a driving-focused endeavor that’ll make you yearn for Mass Effect 1’s Mako voyaging.
As such, while everyone is of course encouraged to formulate their own opinions, I can’t personally recommend the original Halo.
NOTES
+Before the retro gamers come out of the woodwork with their pitchforks, no, I’m not saying an objective marker was necessary (though it is worth pointing out that Cortana will occasionally generate one for you should you dawdle around too long), but considering you’re not granted a minimap or any kind of verbal clues to dictate your direction, and considering further that several missions do contain a quest compass, having the option to toggle one doesn’t seem too farfetched to ask.
++Cortana’s been given a grand makeover that comes with a pair of C-cup breasts. As much as I want to laugh at 343 for sexing up an AI figure, perhaps they should instead be praised for predicting what would happen with vocaloid mascots and VIs decades later .
+++For the record, Guilty Spark’s characterization itself is fine, revolving around a piece of ancient machinery developing amoral sapience. Some have projected religious themes onto it, but I feel the endeavor is pointless in view of his annoyance.
++++Special shout out to Cloaked in Blackness in particular!
5 Comments
@Memoats - Ty for the comment Memoats, appreciate the different perspective. I do remember liking it when I first played it, but that did change unfortunately with this replay.
So all those things are minor criticisms to be fair - they didn't significantly bring down the experience, they just added salt to the wounds if that makes sense. The bigger issue was absolutely the level design and Warthog sections.
I definitely understand where people are coming from who advocate atmosphere as a core component of a video game, but all cards on the table I'm not one of those folks -- I feel like atmosphere should come second to gameplay, level design/world design, and story because if one of those three facets isn't solid, then the atmosphere only partially alleviates what'll be a slog of an experience. And Halo's atmosphere I actually think was partially infringed by the graphical changes - it's so much brighter and more colorful here compared to the OG which was darker and murkier.
What's your take on atmosphere?
So all those things are minor criticisms to be fair - they didn't significantly bring down the experience, they just added salt to the wounds if that makes sense. The bigger issue was absolutely the level design and Warthog sections.
I definitely understand where people are coming from who advocate atmosphere as a core component of a video game, but all cards on the table I'm not one of those folks -- I feel like atmosphere should come second to gameplay, level design/world design, and story because if one of those three facets isn't solid, then the atmosphere only partially alleviates what'll be a slog of an experience. And Halo's atmosphere I actually think was partially infringed by the graphical changes - it's so much brighter and more colorful here compared to the OG which was darker and murkier.
What's your take on atmosphere?
@RedBackLoggd Alright, finally home to respond.
Yeah, those Warthog sections do suck major ass, I think they're much better to play with a friend since one mistake doesn't mean you have to restart the section but it doesn't excuse how bad they are to do solo.
I also think atmosphere should be secondary, but I thought it was odd for it to not be mentioned entirely since you were already comparing the changes from the OG. The lighting is especially a notable change; I unfortunately couldn't find the image I was looking for, but this image is a decent enough substitute. Given how bright everything is and there being missing blood textures, you definitely lose a lot of the atmosphere that made missions like 343 Guilty Spark so iconic.
That said, I appreciate the fact that the game lets you swap back and forth between OG and Anniversary graphics, so it's not like you're forced to deal with them.
Yeah, those Warthog sections do suck major ass, I think they're much better to play with a friend since one mistake doesn't mean you have to restart the section but it doesn't excuse how bad they are to do solo.
I also think atmosphere should be secondary, but I thought it was odd for it to not be mentioned entirely since you were already comparing the changes from the OG. The lighting is especially a notable change; I unfortunately couldn't find the image I was looking for, but this image is a decent enough substitute. Given how bright everything is and there being missing blood textures, you definitely lose a lot of the atmosphere that made missions like 343 Guilty Spark so iconic.
That said, I appreciate the fact that the game lets you swap back and forth between OG and Anniversary graphics, so it's not like you're forced to deal with them.
@Memoats - Haha all good.
Yeah, I can't imagine why they wouldn't design the Warthog turret to be accessible while driving as a single-player. Unfortunately I can verify that co-op doesn't alleviate the final section where they infuriatingly put grooves in the middle of the floor, forcing you to Triscuit 4x4 it.
Tbf that image is a bit misleading as they definitely kept blood/blood splatter in the new version. To answer your question, I did allude to it in this sentence: "There are also times where the Anniversary Edition overindulges in colored lighting, throwing oodles upon oodles of purple/blue gradients at you when the OG’s blackscale was far more befitting for the dreary setting, though I understand this is subject to debate." The reason why there wasn't more focus on it in the review is b/c it didn't impact my playthrough enough, either positively or negatively, to warrant the citation. I also think Halo kind of suffers from the Seinfeld Isn't Funny trope b/c it was so influential that it's many successors/influences took that haunting alien motif and did it better, so it's harder for me to appreciate what Halo brought to the field.
That said, if you ever write a review for Halo, I'd LOVE to read a fleshed-out paragraph explaining how the ambience upped your personal experience playing the game.
Yeah, the swapping is an amazing feature and I'm surprised more remasters haven't been able to incorporate it.
Yeah, I can't imagine why they wouldn't design the Warthog turret to be accessible while driving as a single-player. Unfortunately I can verify that co-op doesn't alleviate the final section where they infuriatingly put grooves in the middle of the floor, forcing you to Triscuit 4x4 it.
Tbf that image is a bit misleading as they definitely kept blood/blood splatter in the new version. To answer your question, I did allude to it in this sentence: "There are also times where the Anniversary Edition overindulges in colored lighting, throwing oodles upon oodles of purple/blue gradients at you when the OG’s blackscale was far more befitting for the dreary setting, though I understand this is subject to debate." The reason why there wasn't more focus on it in the review is b/c it didn't impact my playthrough enough, either positively or negatively, to warrant the citation. I also think Halo kind of suffers from the Seinfeld Isn't Funny trope b/c it was so influential that it's many successors/influences took that haunting alien motif and did it better, so it's harder for me to appreciate what Halo brought to the field.
That said, if you ever write a review for Halo, I'd LOVE to read a fleshed-out paragraph explaining how the ambience upped your personal experience playing the game.
Yeah, the swapping is an amazing feature and I'm surprised more remasters haven't been able to incorporate it.
Hmm, yeah. If you've played other shooters before Halo, I guess it's not as impressive or memorable as it would've otherwise been. Kind of a shame! CE was personally my first shooter game and being able to see how the series began to evolve was almost magical in a way (though I suppose that can be chalked up to nostalgia by some).
I would love to do a Halo review, but it's been a really hot minute since I last played them, and if I were to do a full playthrough of them, I'd like to be able to do co-op with my brother, but we'll see. It's definitely something I'd like to do, but my backlog sure isn't forgiving...
But yeah, this was a pretty nice perspective to read, good talk!
I would love to do a Halo review, but it's been a really hot minute since I last played them, and if I were to do a full playthrough of them, I'd like to be able to do co-op with my brother, but we'll see. It's definitely something I'd like to do, but my backlog sure isn't forgiving...
But yeah, this was a pretty nice perspective to read, good talk!
Memoats
3 days ago
You definitely make a lot of good points here, but I'm also shocked you didn't go over the atmosphere of the game. That's like, half of what makes this game so iconic!