Review DanMaul 4/5 · Jan 31, 2024
My first journey through the world of Halo
One of my biggest shames as an Xbox fan who has been in the ecosystem since its birth and has owned every single console model since the original is that I have never dived into either of their big shooter franchises, apart from the first opening hours of Combat Evolved and the first Gears of War. Determined to change this, …
One of my biggest shames as an Xbox fan who has been in the ecosystem since its birth and has owned every single console model since the original is that I have never dived into either of their big shooter franchises, apart from the first opening hours of Combat Evolved and the first Gears of War. Determined to change this, as ridiculously late to the party as I was, I decided to tackle at least one of them this year, and chose Halo as my first stop. Having now played the first 6 main Halo games back-to-back in the form of the Master Chief Collection, I’d like to share my somewhat condensed thoughts on the franchise so far.
Also, keep in mind these are my experiences with the campaigns only - no multiplayer.
Halo: Combat Evolved
Combat Evolved is instantly likeable. From its old-style backtracking level design to the funny little voices and lines given to the Grunts, this game exudes a charm that is hard to pinpoint yet is ever present. I’ll get to everything I think this game does right, but I’d like to mention one specific feature before everything else: the ability to switch between original and remastered visuals back and forth at the press of a button is a thing of absolute beauty. At one point, it became a game within a game for me, and I couldn’t get over how different the MCC version often looked. However, what surprised me the most was how well the original look held up, in fact I frequently preferred it over the new version, since it has this darker, moodier tone that brought with it tons of atmosphere. A perfect example of how art direction can be much more impactful than simple high quality textures.
I also love the direct approach of Combat Evolved to the FPS genre. A product of its time, naturally, but in 2024 this felt highly refreshing to me. No frills, no BS, no overly complex mechanics, simple fun weapons, clean UI, no formulaic bosses. From today’s modern perspective, the whole thing immediately hit me as a renewed experience: it’s straight up shooter goodness and I love the game for it. Speaking of which, I was also surprised at how good the shooting still feels to this day, and I had a great time with CE’s gunplay from start to finish. And since I somehow managed to avoid any and all spoilers to this day, the story was certainly engaging enough to make me want to keep at it. Other things I enjoyed was the fact that your allies can die at any moment, even by friendly fire (which gives them a disposable feel but raises combat stakes), the mixed nature of arena and corridor segments, the great fun that is piloting a ghost, and the very cool tribal feel present in some of the game’s soundtrack.
There is an annoying, arguably copy-paste repetitiveness to some of its level layouts (the Library level is egregious), the game’s a bit glitchy, the warthog controls feel like an absolute nuisance at first, and tied to that, the last level can absolutely suck a lemon. But none of these were strong enough to seriously hinder my enjoyment. I’m happy I finally got round to this all-time classic, I now get why so many were wowed by it back in the day, and it made me excited to carry on with my first Halo journey. 8.5/10
Halo 2
Something that immediately catches your eye when you play the first two Halo games back-to-back is the impressively higher quality of the new cutscenes in the sequel. Additionally, Halo 2 does a much better job at keeping true to the original tone of the original release for the most part, which alongside the fact that it adds some effective horror imagery to a couple of levels, contributes to a significantly more atmospheric experience in its iterative form.
But Halo 2 is, of course, much more than that. Compared to Combat Evolved, there’s more of a Mass Effect flavour to it lore wise, a more magnanimous vibe to the overarching narrative that injects a more accomplished feeling of urgency into your playthrough. This is further fuelled by greatly kinetic, high octane action-packed gameplay that is a step above the first game, and enhanced by the fact that this sequel also does a better job with pacing and playthrough variety - I don’t think this is a spoiler but I’ll just say you don’t
Just like Combat Evolved, however, Halo 2 also has its share of problems. The main one is its ending, which seemed abrupt and with a cliffhanger that looked more forced than natural, very clearly making the game feel like a ‘part 1’ of a bigger product. In fact, story wise, this is a tougher one to follow, with some convoluted plot threads that I thought weren’t properly explained throughout the campaign, almost forcing you to read up on Halo lore elsewhere to keep up with certain elements. Level design was also hit and miss for me. While variety is significantly improved, and I appreciated a lot of what it had to offer, every now and then the settings lacked a bit of clarity - a weird thing to experience in such a linear game -, and some, such as the Earth segments, made me think I had been thrown into a Call of Duty world rather than a Halo one. Unlike its predecessor, Halo 2 introduces some boss fights, though I’d have preferred these had stayed out since none of them are memorable. Finally, the game is buggier than it should be - I actually had to replay the last level because the last door simply wouldn’t open.
Still, as a package, to me this was just as enjoyable to go through as was Combat Evolved. I was all over the more grandiose and refined feel of Halo 2, and its flaws, annoying as some may be, are nowhere near enough to keep me from considering this an impressive shooter, even to this day. 8.5/10
Halo 3
The last game of the trilogy picks up immediately where Halo 2 left off. This was clearly meant as part 2 of Halo 2, and although I had my reservations about how abruptly its predecessor seemed to have ended, I was happy that my back-to-back playthrough of all the titles in the franchise was so well rewarded in this regard. The ride is a wild one from the very first segment. Halo 3, to me, feels like a short, action-packed space opera, with lots of impactful narrative moments and amazing grand scale battles. To this day, the whole game has an epic aura plastered all over it, something I felt was missing from both original Halos in order to bring them to the next level. The first fight against the scarab is so memorable precisely because of the magnanimous undertones it injects, and to be honest, I’m quite surprised at how effective it still is in 2024. This was also the first time I felt Cortana’s character truly shone through, and her relationship with Master Chief was portrayed in a much deeper, more meaningful, emotional manner, adding an extra hook to the playthrough, one that is big and ties the entire narrative from beginning to end.
Another thing I loved about this game was how well the gunplay hods up. Both Combat Evolved and Halo 2 do an impressive job of it, but Halo 3 manages to feel even better and snappier than the ones that came before it. And the icing on the cake here is the gravity hammer: this is one of the most fun weapon introductions I remember coming across over the past couple years in a game. Using it gives Master Chief an OP status that feels so suitable for such a character, and I thoroughly enjoyed smashing through waves of enemies with it. Finally, and though I’ve already mentioned it tangentially, the story is also an aspect I’d like to dedicate a couple of sentences to. To me, Halo 3 is a fantastic narrative conclusion to the trilogy. It’s punchy, well laid out, and there’s often an eerie tone throughout it, both in its soundscape as well as its imagery, that serves it quite well and greatly helps contrast it with previous Halo games.
The driving AI is atrocious, there’s a bit too much backtracking in a couple of levels, unarmed attack feels useless, and I found a lighting issue going through Flood Gates that was quite annoying. But to me, Halo 3 improves on almost everything done by its predecessors. A glaring example of this can be found in the last level: there is a clear parallel to be drawn in the way both Combat Evolved and Halo 3 use the warthog as a central piece, but its implementation here showcases an incredible technical evolution between both games, with this iteration making use of it in a much more effective, sensical and enjoyable way.
More than 16 years after release, Halo 3 remains an amazing game. It has become my personal favourite of the trilogy, and for someone like me, who is well past his love affair with first-person shooters, I am almost shocked to have loved it as much as I did. 9/10
Halo 3: ODST
This is a very good spinoff from the main narrative, with an interesting urban setting and a somewhat somber, noir vibe that serves as the backdrop for a sort of detective story told in the Halo universe.
Most of it was well done, and a lot of ODST often oozes atmosphere, masterfully infused with an incredible, tone-appropriate soundtrack that’s a delight to listen to. The more open level design on the other hand, which now comes with a map to help you navigate, wasn’t exactly easy to get into for me since I’m quite partial to the more contained structure of the trilogy - I think they serve the gameplay and pacing better. Tied to this was the fact that I felt there was a bit of unnecessary ‘fluff’ to ODST that strips away the refreshing simplicity I’ve come to appreciate in Halo games. An example of this is the VISR mode, which you can use to identify enemies. Visually, I didn’t find it helped much at all except for illuminating dark interiors, which ultimately made it function as little more than a glorified flashlight. Other changes Bungie did that didn’t quite resonate with me were the removal of dual-wielding, the reintroduction of manual HP regen and the harsher fall damage penalty (at least it seemed that way to me).
All this may sound like harsh criticism for a game I ended up enjoying quite a bit, but the truth is I did. I liked the narrative, the jumping back and forth between characters trying to piece together what had happened - which also takes you through some impressive environments -, the story surrounding Buck and the fact that he was brought to life by Nathan Fillion, the fact that the driving AI was incredibly improved over past games, and I loved the already mentioned more somber visual tone and music present in ODST.
Above all else, I had quite a bit of fun with this game, a bite-sized side tale set in the Halo universe, only loosely related to the overarching tale, though still connected enough to make you invested from a lore perspective. I may have missed Master Chief and Cortana or the epic feel of past games, but that doesn’t mean I consider ODST a poor entry to the series. Quite the contrary in fact. This is well worth a play. 8/10
Halo: Reach
This might be my personal favourite Halo.
Which is surprising since I ended my previous thoughts on ODST saying I had missed Master Chief and Cortana. But unrelated as it may be - even if it is a nice tie-in to Combat Evolved -, the story Reach offers is so, but so compelling that all but made me forget about the bigger Halo picture. Even though this is again essentially a side story, the epic feeling I felt was absent from ODST is absolutely back, with Reach taking you through a grandiose adventure filled with action, intensity, loss, impact, a terrific gut-punching ending and a more personal tone. This is also the first time in the series you play as a squad member consistently, and the game introduces a likeable cast of characters that, though they don’t exactly showcase an intricate personality, are easy to hang out and bond with, especially since your playthrough is long enough to allow you to do that. And in this sense, Reach actually reminded me a lot of my time with Bad Company, which was a nice throwback.
There’s much more that this title does well though. New enemies are challenging and satisfying to engage with, as are (most) new weapons and vehicle additions. Speaking of vehicles, the aerial combat section was a surprising and welcome change of pace. In fact, I really enjoyed mission variety in Reach: it fully resulted in a feeling of newness and always kept my playthrough from feeling stale or repetitive, with the game giving you lots of gadgets to experiment with. One of the most satisfying ones was, of course, the jetpack. It injected not only an obvious fun factor but also greater verticality to levels that resulted in more strategic options. Awesome stuff. There’s also finally a sprint button, though I didn’t like that you had to waste your ability slot to be able to use it.
There are a few drawbacks such as enemies feeling more bullet spongey than in previous entries or the music seeming tonally inconsistent on occasion. But regardless, Reach is a tremendous time. It has offered me copious amounts of action, immersion and fun, and showed me why the Bungie era is so beloved among Halo fans. They went out with an absolute bang. 9/10
Halo 4
The last game on The Master Chief Collection package, and the first in the 343 era. I seem to have enjoyed it more than most.
To put the nasty out there right from the start: it’s kind of crazy the amount of supplemental, pre-acquired knowledge the Halo games sometimes ask of the player. If you go in with the game as your only source of information, chances are you’ll find yourself a bit lost story wise. I had some outside help so this never felt daunting to me, but putting myself in the shoes of someone going in cold, I can imagine having a hard time understanding - and therefore relating to - what’s happening. Even with pre-acquired knowledge some story beats still seemed a tad overly convoluted, if easier to digest. It strikes me as an ongoing trend in Halo regardless of who makes it, with the games doing a somewhat poor job letting you in on the narrative.
Aside from this, I was also disappointed to see a drop in atmosphere. There’s no doubt Halo 4 showcases as a much visually ‘cleaner’ game when compared to past entries, but this, to me, didn’t translate to a more appealing ambience, which made me miss a tone more similar to those earlier games. Finally, the ending felt slightly underwhelming, not in how the story wraps up, but because I felt it negated a potentially epic showdown. Far from being a deal breaker for me, but still noticeable enough to mention.
However, there are a lot of things Halo 4 also does remarkably well in my eyes. Most of them are tangential, but when combined they amount to a very strong package that greatly contributed to my overall enjoyment. The main one was that 343 continued strengthening the Master Chief - Cortana relationship in an engaging way, giving it an emotionally heavy imprint that does enough to keep you invested yet never goes overboard. But there’s a lot more besides this: gunplay is tight and satisfying (sniper rifles in particular are a blast to use), and a couple of new weapon introductions, such as the lightrifle and the railgun, are awesome; a few of the missions are really intense with well-designed set pieces; aside from the new weapons, the game also gives you lots of toys to play with in the form of vehicles such as the Pelican, the Gipsy or - my personal favourite - the Mantis;
All in all, and recognising I may be in the minority, I really feel 343 did a very good job shepherding the franchise with their first entry. There is a clear change in tone and vision that didn’t fully resonate with me, but the extras that Halo 4 brought to the gaming table were more than enough to make me thoroughly enjoy the time I spent on my playthrough. 8.5/10
Final thoughts on the Master Chief Collection
I love this set of games. Combined, they form one of the most engaging sci-fi odysseys I've every experienced in the gaming format, and it's easy to see why Halo became such a beloved franchise from its first release. They are not without their flaws, but what they manage to accomplish easily obliterates any bigger issues I may have had. At this point in my gaming life, I am definitely not an FPS type of player, yet playing these games all these years later has certainly made me a Halo fan. Excellent stuff 8.5/10
