played it in master chief collection, but played the og not remastered originally, only reviewing campaign ~ halo's been around my whole life & like most american kids i did casually play some halo in my life of course. it was cool playin some multiplayer with friends as a kid, & had a few good memories of playing co op campaign & firefight a few times. as a kid i knew about the lore vaguely but never fully immersed myself enough to actually understand any of it. i always had some respect for halo but as i got older & was in the end of my cynical gamer phase a couple years ago, i remember seeing the initial gameplay trailer when halo infinite was coming out saying some shit like "wow, another halo man & it looks like the same old shit, master chief comin out blastin aliens" lol with no actual deep halo knowledge at the time. but in response james told me "ya man, you love smash, & the new smash is still the same exact idea but newer, that's how it works, it's the same thing" & i feel like that rly helped me break free from how much of a cynical dumbass i was being. fast forward to now i just beat dead space & james wants to play co op halo 1 campaign. sure why not, we start playing on legendary & it's fun playing with a friend regardless yknow. but still man! not even knowing i still had some old dumb ties inside me because even as we're playing it & having fun, i was still thinking "yeah, but i'd still never play halo by myself & this is only fun bc i'm playing co op" & of course my bullshit was crushed again! as we continued to play man what an absolute respect i got for the game. with it being around my whole life i always took the halo style of gamplay for granted, accepting it as normal, & extremely standard, classic halo style gameplay, because i never knew anything different. but now after knowing more about gaming in genreal, & playing this first entry i think that it's so incredible imagining that before this game dropped, halo didn't exist yet, & in their very first game, they so strongly had already established the exact type of halo gameplay that we all know to this day! i was like 3 years old then but how crazy fun it must've been if you were consciously old enough when this first was released! & man did i get used to it easily after awhile. not knowing the controls & basic idea like i already did from messin around on some halo in the past, but truly understanding the combat & gameplay & how things worked. & ya man all i can say, so fun & addicting. story wise it def seemed simple my first play thru, i felt it was like the first star wars, blow up the death star & set up the world for the bigger story i knew was bound to come. but it was a great intro to the series & rly helped focus on me getting used to the overall feel of simply playing halo. & as i finished what i orginally thought i would be some casual co op fun, i ended it & immediately felt the desire to want to start halo 2 solo asap, & i did.... !
playing this rly solidified in teaching me to NOT judge a game based on old preconceived biases before rly giving it a chance!!

EDIT/UPDATE
i replayed the game all the way thru except this time on the remastered version & finished today on 4/18/2023. all i can say is even better than i knew the first time! i still prefer the OG version of the graphics i feel there's more charm & just feels cooler/more classic to play, but was still cool to see the remastered sights/sounds which was done p well. but the main difference is that since my first play thru was co-op i didn't get the story as deeply as i did playing solo now. that combined with the fact that i've at this point finished halo 2 & 3, coming back to this first one & the story is much better of an opener than i thought! not having to get used to playing halo anymore & understanding the world & characters of halo & what they will become, i can now fully understand every aspect of the story that the first game gave, & it's great imo! it's not as complex but idk i feel like it's air tight & all around every mission feels like a moment now, even the library wasn't so bad this time! lol could be bc i now know the great things that come after this but idk, there's something about the pure air tight simplicity of this first game that i love so much, on my first play thru i rated it a 4 star, but honestly going back, i feel like it's kinda perfect !