Years ago I decided to play Halo CE on my Xbox One. I got up around in the middle of Mission 8 and dropped it because of how difficult and frustrating it gets. I thought that would be my last Halo experience and I was dropping the series for good. Now, last week my friend told me to buy Halo because it would be nice for us to play it together. I agreed. He said each game would only be around 4 hours long and that seems like a good amount of time. He couldn’t play the game with me because he was busy while I was free. Anyways, the game. I definitely jumped into this game with a bit of a negative sense. The first 5 or so maps were actually quite easy and seemed alright. I thought that it was just the fact that I was playing with a controller back in the day but now I chose to use a keyboard because it’s definitely the superior and fastest way to play first person shooter games. When the flood came into the mix, the game started to become a bit annoying. Yes they are supposed to be an unstoppable force but my god are they just a massive nuisance. They get to use literally any weapon in the game. Even the rocket launchers. That caused a few annoying deaths. And the second map they appear in, The Library, is one of the worst maps I’ve ever seen in a game. It’s boring, annoying, and taunting. First, the boringness comes from the design. You just walk from one side of a massive hallway to the next around 4 times while a huge amount of flood just comes around and stops your progress. That’s literally all you do for 30-45 minutes. Secondly, the annoying stuff. It’s the flood (of course). They come in seemingly endless quantities and just never fucking stop. Lastly, the piece of shit Wheatley looking thing just hums and laughs while you are just getting fucked by the flood. Thanks bitch. I definitely know you will be a valuable comrade in the future. I talked about this briefly on the Halo Discord and this one shithead just said to me “Shotgun and Never Stop Moving” twice and proceeded to brag about how he beat the game on Legendary with a controller. Did I ask? Anyways the game isn’t all bad things. It’s quite fun to play (despite the flood and those beefy Covenant dudes) and most of the game is a fair challenge. Being able to use both human and Covenant weapons is pretty nice. I chose to use the Plasma Pistol which didn’t seem to be a great weapon but holy shit it just feels the best for most enemies. Of course, the flood should be dealt with by shotgun because that’s just how it works and I never questioned it once. The vehicles feel pretty good to drive around and just ram into enemies. Just don’t get rammed over yourself. That’s never fun. Oh yeah, remember how my friend said that the game should only take around 4 hours to beat? Well, it took me 11 and a half. Maybe it's just because I’m very bad at shooter games. Anyways the game is fine. The old visuals look nice but the new ones just don’t look like a right upgrade. Does the game deserve such a high rating like a 97 on Metacritic? Definitely not. Does the series have a toxic and unhelpful fan base? Totally. Will I continue to play Halo games? Well yeah I paid $20 for it so why not? Overall, Halo CE is a great beginning for a series and shows potential to improve and become much better.
8/10