Weird, it wouldn’t let me into the game at first. Then the install progress suddenly jumped from 2% to 20% and said it was ready to play.
Played through the first parts of the first levels of the first three games.
Halo: CE
Wow, they changed the way the game looks by a lot. It’s so cool going back and forth at the touch of a button. Certain places didn’t look recognizable at all in the Pillar of Autumn, even though I’ve played through this part a million times and should remember every corridor. And then I press the button to change the view, and it changes to a dark corridor with colored lights in the distance. Oh yeah! I remember this! Press button to switch back: it’s now a really well-lit corridor that looks nothing like the old one. That’s some bizarre “upgrading” of lighting and textures, if you ask me. I still appreciate it though. At least now I don’t have to look at mitten hands during in-game cutscenes.
Also, holy shit this game is hard on Legendary. Just the way I like it. Progress is slow, but very satisfying. Again, switching to original Halo graphics during combat really helps. It’s much easier to tell the shield “shimmer” in the original graphics on Elites, so I know when to switch to bullets to finish them off.
One really nice benefit is that even the original graphics Halo runs way better than it did on Xbox. 1080p 60fps really does feel a lot better, even with the original models and textures and lighting.
Halo 2: Anniversary
Wow, the new cutscenes are gorgeous. I had no idea what some of these scenes were supposed to be in the original Halo 2. It’s really funny switching to the original cinematics, where there is no more LOD low-res textures popping in and out like in the original, but it still looks like shit, because original Xbox. Also, wow, this game starts incredibly hard. I started over on Heroic. I’m not doing Legendary on Halo 2 again. Never again! That’s just torture. Especially the boss battles.
Halo 3
Wow, this is a much better looking game than the first two. I guess back in 2007 I never realized just how much of a graphical face-lift the series got on the switch to the 360. It basically had the same look and feel. But going from one to the next to the next back to back really puts it into proper perspective.
The third Halo game was such a mess in Co-op. The constant double-crosses, the interruptions by Cortana when four of us were all separated on the map were just so annoying. This will be my first time playing this campaign in single player, so I’m hoping it’s a much better experience than 4 player Co-op was originally. And maybe I can make sense of what’s actually happening this time.
I started playing this tonight. It’s a weird compilation. Halo CE is basically an Xbox game that was gussied up for the 360. Halo 2 is an Xbox game gussied up for the Xbox One. Halos 3 and 4 are essentially still the 360 game, save for higher resolution and higher frame rate.
It’s still all pretty cool, but I quit playing fast, because all these different controls for reload/melee/grenade is going to fuck up my muscle memory for Destiny. Sigh.
My two complaints with this collection:
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I wish there were “making of” docs and commentary included on the disc, or at least having the disc would unlock them on the Waypoint app or something.
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I understand why the controls weren’t standardized across the games, but I wish they were. The collection is set up so that you can wander from level to level between games sort of like playlists. “Check out all the Flood levels!” It’s actually difficult to do because swapping between control schemes on the fly like that sucks.
The first thing I did was to standardize the control schemes. When you go into settings, for each control setting for each game, you can change it for that game or you can press X to change it for all 4 games at once.
Right, but it’s still not quite the same since the carrying capacity, etc changed through games.
It’s still the same control scheme for me. Green thumb is now called Universal Green fingers, and it makes left trigger grenade, thumbstick melee and Rb the zoom button. That gets standardized across the games. When you dual wield in Halo 2, it’s still the same buttons because you can’t throw a grenade while dual-weilding.
Does the game still support local 4 player deathmatch on one xbox?
I don’t know. I only own one XB1 controller, but I’ll go into custom games tomorrow and check out if it’s possible to setup a game like that.
Have you guys had any problems with the online? I’ve heard it’s taking forever to find a match and that there are a some bugs that make the teams really unbalanced. Thinking of canceling my preorder that ended up backordered. Then I can pick it up later when everything is fixed.
I only tried it yesterday, and I couldn’t find a match after a couple of minutes of waiting. So then I went to single player instead. I saw reports today that there was a fix today, so hopefully it is working okay now.
I’m curious about the Halo 2 multiplayer, but the one I really want to revisit is one they don’t have any playlists for yet anyway: Halo Combat Evolved. Hopefully they can get those up and running soon, since none of my old Halo friends agreed to buy the game. I really want to check out the first Halo’s multiplayer online for the first time. (Well, the first time if you don’t count the PC version of Halo by Gearbox).
I’ll confess that I haven’t even dipped into MP yet. That said, Polygon just updated their review to reflect what they say is broken matchmaking.
There’s no sugarcoating it: Halo: The Master Chief Collection’s multiplayer component is broken. Users have reported extended wait times to access matches in every playlist (or “hopper,” per Halo parlance). Polygon editors have had similar difficulties, and today I was unable to access a single match of any kind, encountering various error messages or endless queues, and even one full game crash to the Xbox One dashboard.
The Master Chief Collection’s campaign element appears to be fully functional, so players aren’t totally locked out of the experience the game is offering. But until 343 manages to make it multiplayer functional, our recommendation of the MCC has become considerably more qualified.
You mean they didn’t adequately test part of the game they reviewed? I am shocked, shocked I tell you.
My brother is pretty ticked off about this. He bought it digitally or else might have already traded it in or something. He has played a grand total of one or two matches. Every other time it just continues to search for players over and over to no avail. At first I thought it was because he was playing it at midnight on release so there might not be many other on but even since then he hasn’t been able to play it at all. He literally bought the game just for the MP and without that working it’s just a expensive coaster.
Both MS and 343 have released statements about this to confirm they are working on it. There has also been a server side patch, which hasn’t solved much. I am inclined to give them a few days post launch to get it all sorted. But I wouldn’t blame Halo fans for getting upset if they can’t play mp this weekend.
As for Polygon, they mentioned in the original review, which was published before the release, that they only had gotten to play mp at an event and that the review would be updated to reflect the situation post launch. Can’t really blame them for that.
Personally, I’ve been playing single player and it’s such a joy to revisit the story from the beginning. Brings me back to when I bought my first modern day console (hadn’t owned any gaming stuff since the 80ies). I actually think that even the original graphics haven’t aged that badly. But maybe that’s just nostalgia speaking. :)
Wendelius
The original graphics do look better as well actually. Just having the original game display at 1080p and 60fps makes it look and feel a lot better.
I tried Halo 4. So first off, port wise, it doesn’t look that great, and has framerate issues when moving to new areas. And, well, I found it kind of hard to come from Destiny to this. I can switch the buttons to mostly be the same, but … the combat just isn’t as good. I remember it being more interesting, but the AI seems more bog standard in this one so far. Also, all the new guns are boring. Hey look, it’s a re-skinned shotgun, smg and carbine! Oh and the cloaking didn’t seem to work at all, I’d have it on, and still get spotted and shot at like it wasn’t there.
Though it could just be rose colored glasses, I recall having more fun in the combat with the previous Halos, so I’m curious how much of it is 343 vs Bungie vs my nostalgia. I suppose I’ll find out once I try the other Halos in the collection, unless they’ve all swapped to 343’s AI.
Also, I miss dual wielding. =)
I hated all the new weapons in Halo 4.
From 343 team member Stinkles regarding matchmaking issues:
We DO have dedicated servers.
First off – and I will say this for the next hundred years – SORRY – we are fixing it. It’s getting better slowly today and we expect that trend to continue, but what you’re seeing currently is actually just an element of this complicated problem – we do in fact use dedicated servers for matchmade games, but as an emergency contingency, MCC is designed to fall back to traditional peer-hosted gameplay in the event that there are connectivity issues with the dedicated servers. This can happen for a variety of reasons including intermittent unavailability of dedicated servers, poor ping times to the dedicated server datacenters, or network configuration issues that prevent you from being able to access the dedicated servers. We’re busy getting stuff fixed and improved, and I promise you I will give you a full breakdown of what happened (and it’s multiple compounding things) after we fix it all. And Dan is going to update everyone on the situation and improvements later today.
And sorry for periods of radio silence, we’re literally rushing around fixing stuff.
343 official:
We are aware that while some users are reporting improved Matchmaking experiences, many users have not seen an improvement. As a result, we are temporarily moving to a limited playlist layout that will allow for players to find games faster.
We’ll temporarily be removing the following playlists:
◾Team Hardcore
◾Rumble Pit
◾Halo 4
◾SWAT (rotational)
The updated playlist layout will be:
◾Team Halo 2: Anniversary
◾Halo Championship Series
◾Team Slayer
◾Big Team Battle
◾Halo 2 Classic
◾Halo 3