Halo: The Master Chief Collection

I know. No one here gives a fig for a collection of HD remasters of Halo, Halo 2, Halo 3, and Halo 4 with all add-on content and revamped multiplayer based on Halo 2’s model.

Still, this is interesting.

http://news.xbox.com/2014/11/games-343-industries-announces-the-halo-championship-series?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

The Halo Championship Series will showcase, sponsor and support existing tournament organizers in the growing landscape of eSports today. To help fulfill this ambition, 343 Industries has teamed up with Twitch, ESL, and various tournament organizers to create a year of high-stakes action featuring Halo 2: Anniversary, the newly reimagined multiplayer engine within Halo: The Master Chief Collection.

I’m really anticipating this collection. I didn’t enjoy Halo 2 the first time except for multiplayer, and I hated the campaign in Halo 3. But after playing Bungie’s latest, part of me is curious to see if I didn’t give those two games a fair shake by playing them on the hardest difficulty in Coop. Destiny isn’t as fun in Coop as it is single player, so maybe on Heroic, playing solo, Halo 2 and 3’s campaigns will be a lot better too.

I’m not sure what to think of Halo 2’s multiplayer returning. We sure did have an incredible time for a while. Before the game was full of cheaters and people exploiting bugs. I think we had about 3 months of great multiplayer followed by one month of crap before we gave up on it.

Halo 2 was mega-huge in my household. It was the first MP shooter my kids played and they loved it. They’re still big Halo fans, but the shine has worn off in recent years. Halo 4 and Reach in MP just didn’t do it for them.

I forget which of the Halos I ended up doing single player Legendary on, I think 2 or 3. It’s a pretty huge gameplay shift, since you basically can’t knock down an Elite’s shields with normal guns anymore and are forced to use the energy weapons. I had to do lots of comboing, using one of the normally unused alien pistols and the overcharge on it to knock down shields, then swapping to something more conventional to finish them off.

I remember one of the big changes from one Halo to the next (was it 1 -> 2 or 2 -> 3? I can’t remember) was that the plasma pistol couldn’t be held at full charge anymore. It drained energy at an alarming rate if you did that. So you had to charge it up right before you were set to shoot. That made its use a LOT harder for me against the AI, which was very dodge-happy. There was this additional pressure: no, can’t wait for the perfect shot, energy is draining, you’re going to be out of ammo soon, shoot now, shoot now! Damn it! Missed! Why didn’t you wait to line up the shot better?

I’m looking forward to this, but I’m trying to remember correctly: Didn’t Bungie switch the controls for melee and grenade around between games? That could get annoying, fast. Muscle memory being what it is.

I’d love it if they unified the control scheme across all games.

I don’t know what the default control scheme was for any of the Halos anymore. In the first Halo we discovered Green thumb was our favorite because of how much more often we needed to melee enemies while aiming. So we all switched to Green thumb. Then each Halo game after the original always had Green Thumb, so there was no problem.

But I do remember some growing pains regarding dual weilding in Halo 2. I can’t remember exactly how they handled it, but I think you had to drop one of the two weapons in order to throw a grenade, right?

Destiny really makes me miss Halo’s multiplayer, Bungie jettisoned a lot of what made their PvP great in Destiny. Whether that was a justified move for Destiny in light of different goals for the game can be debated, but that I miss it cannot.

I don’t think that by the time I get around to owning an Xbox One there will be much of a community to keep me interested in the multiplayer, and I’m well past the days of dorm room LAN parties where Halo really shined, but I certainly get the appeal, and if I already had an Xbox One I’d pick this up even without arguably the two best Halo games (ODST and Reach).

The video showcasing the Forge improvements was pretty crazy. Wait for the reveal around 4:30.

Well, if I get an Xbone, as is looking more and more likely, I kind of have to get the Halo collection. It’s like a law or something. I do recall having a huge time playing the campaign in co-op, I tried running through the re-released 360 Halo game in co-op but it was just unmanageable. Hopefully all that’s been updated as well.

The actual campaign designs haven’t been touched other than the graphical facelift. Like the Halo HD game, you can hit the button to toggle back and forth between the old graphics and the new while in-game.

I meant the online component. I was pretty ok with how the redone Halo looked, but it was nearly impossible to play online co-op with another player. I’m assuming that was mashed into the game since as I recall the original Halo had no online multiplayer, being pre-Live.

I thought I read they improved the Halo 2 library and some other poorer sections, but I’m not sure.

I was hoping ODST and Reach would be included. Nonetheless, I’ll probably buy it anyway.

So is there any provision for bots or any sort of horde mode to stand in for firefight? Or is the Master Chief collection just Xboxxed One versions of Halos 1-4 as they were released, with co-op campaigns for two players?

 -Tom

They added better markings (I think it was the Halo 1 library, not 2) to show you where you should be going.

I don’t think there’s a horde mode/firefight at all. In fact, from everything I can see they ripped out the MP from Halo 3 and 4 and replaced it with the revamped Halo 2 MP for the whole package.

Edit: Nope. I was wrong. Apparently, Halo 3/4 have their MP intact. I can’t find anything about Firefight mode.

Assuming they’re doing the library markings in the library from 360 update, the front page has an article that explains what a difference it makes. It’s the third entry on the features slider bar.

-Tom

I was under the impression that all the multiplier suites are included intact, including Halo 4’s Spartan Ops.

From the official site

THE ULTIMATE HALO MULTIPLAYER EXPERIENCE
In addition to the 45 campaign missions you get with Halo: The Master Chief Collection, you can play with your friends on over 100 multiplayer maps (including the original Halo: Combat Evolved maps) and all Halo: Spartan Ops missions.* With the Master Menu, play all four games from start to finish, or jump around and play your favorite missions. Use curated playlists to experience both the campaign and multiplayer modes in a whole new way.

Sadly the collection does not include ODST or Reach, which had the Firefight mode in them.

Unless I missed it somewhere, which I hope I did.