Halo Series

So I've been playing these games due to them being on GamePass. I'd beaten Halo 1 before and part of Halo 2 as a teenager, but never found them too impressive. After a rather boring start I decided to play the game on Heroic (Hard) mode and...I fell in love. This really is apparently a case of a game that shows its true colors on higher settings. Mechanically speaking I'm mostly impressed by the details going on and the mechanics at play, especially for the first game which is so janky (since it was apparently made in 9 months or something?).

Few things that I really enjoy about it:

- the shield system, you have a shield but so do your foes. Bullets don't get through it too easily, but bullets deal massive damage to your regular health. Energy weapons on the other hand deal massive damage to shields. You'll constantly be doing weapon combos of a charged plasmashot with one gun to a headshot with a magnum afterwards. There's a huge difference in killing enemies effectively and just running and gunning (which I originally did, but that doesn't work on Hard as you'll get destroyed)
- difficulty levels change enemy loadouts, locations etc. It also gives you a few buffs, such as recharging your shield faster which is a cool addition.
- every gun is, imo, good. Unlike most shooters (barring Doom ofc), each gun matters here. Which took me by surprise. The Assault Rifle is great against hordes of enemies. The Plasma Pistol is great at removing shields and has a ton of regular shots (500). The shotgun is an OHKO against nearly everything. Sniper is a 2HKO at range. Pistol is a headshot single target monster at mid range. Plasma Rifle is an all purpose weapon. RPG is ... well... RPG.
- it plays out more like a strategy game if anything else. Most fights take place in huge arenas which allow you to make your own route and battleplan on how to engage.
- lots of enemies have hidden weaknesses, like Hunters haviing a softspot in their back that can OHKO them if you shoot it with the magnum.

There's some (big) flaws granted, like the extreme reused enviroments in Halo 1 and at times lack of enemy variety. But ... I really am surprised. I always chalked this series up to being this game for CoD fans that drink Monster-energy and wannabe MLG-pro'ers. But...yeah. It's fucking good.

This does solve the eternal mystery for me why Halo was so popular on NGrealms, lots of Ninja Gaiden players loved Halo and I could never figure out why.

I'm gonna try CE on PC MCC with gamepad soon, I'll probably do Heroic but maybe Legendary if it's too easy. Apparently they are gonna fix the original graphics for CE sometime soon also which is pretty awesome. Perhaps some of my old instincts will return, I remember Plasma Pistol overcharge being pretty insane.

Legendary seems pretty fun too, though Heroic seems the most..balanced in some regard. Not sure how to note that down. I would hope they fix the MCC in general, apparently after they added in Reach both Halo 1 and Halo 2 got massive frame-rate issues when using the Anniversary Graphics.

I intended to play through the whole series on Legendary (in plot order). Beat Reach, and then got to maybe the 3rd mission in CE and just gave up, wasn't enjoying it at all. Maybe I should give it another shot if you guys are praising it!

I wouldn't start on Legendary personally. Starting CE on Heroic really helped me out, especially with it being the MCC version (the original looks...very dated haha). Heroic is just hard enough to push the usage of the game's mechanics like weapon combos, shieldmechanics etc. but not hard enough like Legendary where you basically have to master them.

I can imagine going into Legendary probably not even knowing about the Plasma EMP into Magnum Headshot combo would be a nightmare to play.

I loved these games growing up. Reading this made me go to download them on PC...173GB?! What the hell?! Why does it take up so much space?

Probably since you did a full install that includes Halo 1, 2, 3, 4, Reach, ODST etc. If you go into MCC you can choose what to install IIRC.

But yeah fucking good games, really still taken by surprise by how much I like them.

That makes sense. Maybe I’ll go through and play them one at a time. I never played anything past ODST.

Finished Halo 2. I can understand that this title was a pretty big inspiration going forward as a lot of trends within it set the stage for later outings in the genre in terms of setpieces and what not. But by god I did not enjoy my time with it at all.

Everything from the nerfed weapons that basically have you shoot plastic nuggets at foes, your weakened shields, a shotgun with the oomph of a dead fart, annoying and tanky foes - the list of annoying things just goes on and on. Massive vehicle sections. Shoved in dual-wielding which doesn't add anything interesting outside of one weapon combi (magnum+plasmapistol). Didn't like playing as the Arbiter one bit either.

Only thing I enjoyed was the abusable aggro system. Enemies would fire at your last seen position, giving you some time to surprise them/flank them. And melee attacks from behind were an OHKO, which you could work around into with some funky setups.

That aside, glad it's over. Halo 3 seems a lot more fun so far.

Yet to play Halo 2 but something I've heard across the series is that the weapons were best in the first game. The Magnum is a beast, the Shotgun has power and decent range (pretty majorly nerfed in later games I think), Assault Rifle actually being a decent all-round weapon like it should be...

I don't remember ever seeking out any of those weapons in my numerous Halo 3 playthroughs, over the years. I don't know why they felt the need to reduce their effectiveness so much. Possibly because they added more weapons and wanted to make them more unique?

Hmm, interesting to read about Halo 2. Will be curious to see if I also have a tough time enjoying it.

>weapons are best in the first game
Certainly seems to be the case.

The weapons in H2 are a mess imo, but in H3 it's a tad better. That said it already has 'double syndrom' in the case of "what does this weapon do that others don't" i.e. you have an Assault Rifle (rapid fire, no aim down sights, no headshots) and the SMG (exact same). The damage value then decides which one wins, which is a bad call.

The only gun in H1 that isn't that great is the regular assault rifle, but only on Legendary. Otherwise it's just a fantastic selection of guns imo and due to the battery system sees you switching guns a lot. Needler is great fun too. 8(?) Needles is a true OHKO against every enemy in the game. Fun tool to have!

Finished Halo CE on Heroic, PC with gamepad. Really fun game! Gamepad is clearly what this was designed around, highly recommended to use that even on PC.

Basically agree with Roy's assessment in the OP. The reused levels and reused level geometry is probably the game's biggest flaw, fighting through the same 4 hallways in The Library is brutal on the psyche. I also think the Assault Rifle is pretty garbage, but the other weapons are pretty good so that's okay. The story is also surprisingly well-executed, much better than the usual fare in it's pacing.

Played a bit of Halo 2 already on KBM a while ago but I'm just gonna restart on gamepad. Didn't enjoy it all that much but we'll see if I change my mind.

I'm surprised by how many people love Halo 2 - I really did not enjoy my time with it at all to be honest as noted. Might be nostalgia or I might be missing on something. I really want to give it another go on PC this time around since the console version is super busted, but I can't get the game to boot sadly.

Just finished Halo 3, ODST and Reach and just started Halo 4. So far Halo 3 is really, really, really good. Feels like the true evolution of Halo 1. ODST is a fun sideventure, with Reach being this weird amalgamation.

Glad to hear you're enjoying it too! I agree the AR isn't that great, though it has its value. It's a pretty low-ammo cost to deal with grunts so you can save pistol ammo, but of all the tools it is defeinitely the one I use the least. It gets a good place in H3 thankfully.

Finished Halo 2 on Heroic, although Bungie didn't. The game can still be fun but it's an absolute mess, the terrible H2 dev cycle took it's toll here.

A lot of the CE weapons have been trashed, many "small arms" weapons (plasma pistol, plasma rifle, needler, magnum) have been nerfed to compensate for dual wielding. Dual wielding needlers is fun I guess. Shotgun and magnum in particular got destroyed, they are nigh-useless now.

Beam rifle, brute shot, and energy sword are good additions at least. Beam rifles are pretty common and can kill lots of stronger enemies in 2 headshots, but shooting quickly leads to overheat and descoping, which is a nice risk-reward mechanic. Brute shot grenades are fun to bounce off the ground, and the blade does a ton of damage. Energy sword has a fast and slow attack, and the lunge range is surprisingly big. I do wish it had less ammo but more damage.

Level design has been vastly improved from CE, gone are the days of going through every environment twice. A few copy-pasted sections here and there but nothing to complain too much about, there are bigger problems.

Arbiter stuff is really cool story-wise, but gameplay-wise it's a bit hit or miss. The early levels with Elites are fun, but the Flood is rough to fight, and the few Library-esque sections don't help. You can do some cheesy stuff with the active camo, which is fun at first but gets kinda old. The later levels are kinda a shitshow, but so are Chief's to be fair. I used active camo to simply run past a lot of the later encounters.

Brutes are pretty badly designed in this game. Giving them no shields was a huge mistake, the plasma weapons become almost useless. After a certain point I ran carbine + beam rifle close to 75% of the time just to get quick headshots. Berserk mode is cool I suppose. Brute plasma rifle feels like a placeholder weapon that was left in due to time constraints.

The difficulty curve is fucked in this game, especially later on. Sword Elites around corners, Drone ambushes (see below), clumps of Brute Captains with 3 brute shots deleting you instantly, hordes of tanky Flood with random shotgunners in the mix that will one-tap you. In the later missions I was running past some encounters even as Chief, it wasn't worth it to even try to kill things. High Charity is extremely bad about this. This game feels like Legendary on Heroic, and not in a good way.

Drones are (probably unintentionally) the hardest enemy in the game. Don't die in one headshot, way tankier than they look, surprise you in groups of 10, fly around and over your cover, and spray plasma pistol shots everywhere. If you don't have a beam rifle (one-shots in body) prepare to hide and spam BR/carbine/etc.

Boss fights are about usual FPS boss quality. Heretic one is pretty easy, just headshot him a couple times and it's over. Regret is fine, I would even call it fun. Tartarus is bizarre, how the fuck does the shield even work? No idea what the deal was, I just shot him for a while and he eventually died.

Story is very good, lives up to the first game IMO. The terminals aren't 343 Forerunner vomit like in CE Anniversary, hooray! They just explain background lore that sets up the game events.

Halo 2 Anniversary graphics are way better than CE Anniversary. Much more faithful to the original vision, and simply nice to look at. Anniversary OST is also very good.

Overall, it still feels like Halo CE, just jankier and shittier. Front half is much better than the back half. On to Halo 3, should be much better.

Glad to hear I'm not alone in this opinion. I feel a lot of weapon's were nerfed too, to the point of being nearly pointless. I get that it was to boost interest in dual wielding but it just went too far I feel. It reeks of multiplayer-balancing affecting singleplayer content of which I'm never a fan.

The Magnum doesn't regain it's power until Reach (to a degree), Halo 4 has it back to original power (but the game sucks). The shotgun never returns sadly in this form, though the Scattershot (basically a shotgun) is pretty decent at shortrange in Halo 4 and 5.

> brutes
They fixed this in Halo 3, where plasma will permanently remove their 'armour'. Which really benefits EMP shots.

> energy sword
Small note, the drain on the weapon is dependant on the target. It's an OHKO against Flood and drains only 2% per strike against them, compared to the nearly 10(?)% against Covenant. The lunge got nerfed in later games sadly since you could, apparently, go massively out of bounds with it in Halo 2.

> arbiter
I am not ashamed in saying I did the same with the later chapters. Some of the later rooms are also pretty much impossible I feel without some massive cheese on your part and infighting going your way.

> brute plasma
It was in fact as you noted, a placeholder. They wanted to give them a unique weapon but ran out of time. The Bruteshot is pretty fun though, but giving an AI enemy such a rapidfire splashdamage weapon wasn't the greatest idea...

> diffficulty
The game is infamous on legendary, since snipers will OHKO you even with max shields.

NOTE: did the checkpoints also seem off to you? Sometimes I wouldn't get one for days. Other times I was swarmed by them.

> Halo 3
You're going to love it. It really is the studio's swan song imo.

Played a bit of Halo 3, like night and day from Halo 2. I really love how much more open, free, and fun the vehicle sections are, it finally reflects the classic Halo sandbox style. Looking forward to playing more!

The first mission alone is just pure solid gold, it really nails all the sweet spots of what makes a good Halo game. Glad to hear you're enjoying it, I had the exact same feeling going into it and it's at the top of my list of games to revist from the series.

Finished Halo 3, what a fantastic game. It feels like what Halo 2 was meant to be and more.

Weapon balance has been polished up a bit. Needler is not dual-wieldable but has been restored to it's former glory. You aren't showered with 20 beam rifles every mission. Shotgun seems a bit better. Brute shot no longer bounces, but fuel rod gun does.

New weapons are pretty cool. Spiker is a bit generic, but good when dual-wielded against Flood. Mauler is a dual-wieldable shotgun that can be useful in a pinch. Gravity Hammer is an energy sword sidegrade: no lunge but AOE effect, and can be used to jump higher (I did this to board a Scarab!). Spartan Laser is awesome, great for killing armor and high-tier infantry but needs a bit of skill to use. Mounted turrets being removable is fun.

Brutes have been vastly, vastly improved from Halo 2. Their powered armor is vulnerable to plasma, they don't all have brute shots, they use tactics like Elites, they even use the consumable items! They still have berserk mode which is nice.

Flood are in their best shape yet. Health has been lowered but numbers increased, this is probably what they wanted to do for H2. The new ranged, tank, and fast forms can all switch between each other, which is kinda interesting. Melee with bladed weapons (brute shot, spiker, mauler maybe?) is extremely effective and destroys the corpses.

Scarabs are great, you can destroy the legs or try to just get in directly. You might be able to even snipe the core with explosives?

Level design is the best it's ever been, no copy-pastes and generally flows well. Lots of open encounters with freedom to how you approach them. Even the worst level (Cortana) is fun.

Great story as usual, wraps up the whole trilogy nicely. The series has been consistently great at this aspect.

Fantastic game, on to ODST.

Always great to hear!

I really enjoyed all the weapons this time around, even the occasional powerup that you could use. Some brutes with the hammers also drop an invincibility powerup which is super handy and fun to abuse with a hammer. Just go out swinging.

Also liked the AR+BMG combi, the BMG was still a tad too good for my tastes from time to time, but the AR was really solid too this time around. Good accuracy when fired in bursts.

Only enemy (and chapter) I felt was a bit bad was the flood one near the end when you go save Cortana. There's one spiked ranged enemy that just takes an insane amount of punishment. Wonder if I was doing something wrong there.

So far it is still my favourite. Reach has the best weapon-balance and damage-values though imo. Everything about that game on a mechanical level is just bliss. It just flows so well. It's hard to put into words, but when you think "I need two melee hits to kill that guy, that feels right" it inded only takes 2 melee hits. They really optimzed it all there in a great way, weapon balance too like making the 3-shot AR (BMG?) into a singleshot and upping shotty damage once again. I does suffer from terrible levels imo.

ODST I'm curious what you think. It's funny that it's the first game where you play as a non-spartan, yet you are way, way, way more durable and tanky I feel.

>ranged spike Flood
Hitting them makes them curl up into a ball after a couple seconds. They gain big damage resistance, but won't shoot. For this reason precision weapons like BR, carbine are very bad.

Burst them down with something like 2 brute shot grenades, or shoot them to make them stop firing back so you can get in closer. Meleeing with brute shot, spiker, energy sword is extremely efficient, kills them in 1 hit, curled up or not.

Beat ODST, short and fun game.

Dual-wielding is gone, I don't really miss it. New SMG is great, jack of all trades weapon replacing the BR. Pistol is amazing too, not the CE magnum but still a headshot machine. No more deployable items, a bit of a shame but no big deal. Brutes still use them though.

Health system returns, I really like it personally. You are kinda tanky in this game, but it's not too far removed from Halo 1. Picking up health instantly recharges your shields which can be useful.

The campaign structure is kinda interesting, the open-world type stuff alternates with the more traditional missions. I like the open-world, it lets you stealth around for some parts without feeling like Halo 2 cheese. You can also do the missions in whatever order you like, it's fun to piece together the chronology of what happened if you did then out of order.

Regular missions are more Halo 3 stuff basically, which is a very good thing. Most of them are less open, but the level/encounter design is good enough that the sandbox structure is still there.

The music is consistently great in the series, but this game gets special mention. The tracks that play after you finish a mission and go back to the Rookie's perspective are phenomenal. Really sells the atmosphere of somber solitude, while still having enough energy to fit combat encounters.

Probably the only mission I didn't like that much was the Phantom escort, although the Scarab takedown was good. Last mission was actually decently hard, this game will throw you 10 brutes at once without blinking an eye. Buck's targeting with the Gauss cannon is kinda wonky, he wouldn't shoot Banshees that were right in view.

Overall, more Halo 3 is more than welcome. On to Reach, the finale for me because fuck Halo 4.

Pretty much had the same feeling regarding ODST, but I didn't know you could do them out of order, that's pretty freak'n neat. Do feel the game lagged on a bit too long near the end, the escort of the alien near the end in the truck went on...and on...and on.

For Halo 4 I would honestly recommend doing Mission 2 on Legendary at least once. It's a ... painful reminder of what could have been. I've been dabbling in that mission for a bit and it really might just be the one of the 'best' Halo levels. It's just such an organic evolution of The Silent Catographer. Makes it sting even harder that afterwards the entire game just shits the bed.

One point I'd like to bring up and discuss is one that's been on my mind and I wonder if you'd agree on this statement: Halo hasn't brought anything new and good to the table since CE.

Now let me explain what I mean.

Everything that we love about Halo, the sandbox, the weapon combindations like EMPshot>MagnumHeadshot, the shield system, how Jackels have the little hole in their shield you can do a two hit combo through, the usage of cover, vehicles and their optional use on the sandbox. It is all from Halo CE.

Now what did later games add?

Dual Wielding: which was dropped pretty fast for being a nightmare to balance.

Weapon Nerfs: I'd call that a step back, not forward

New enemy types: none of which added something new to the mix, instead they are either remixes or regulars (like Brutes being basically Elites from H3 onwards, while not being made with the systems in mind in H2). Shield Generators in ODST were meh. Don't get me started on the horrible enemies added in H4 and H5. I can't think of a single enemy type in later games that is fun to fight aside from the 'classic enemies'.

New Weapons: the only ones that are loved are 'sidegrades' i.e. the bruteshot which is a sidegrade to the RPG (same with the Fusion Canon), SMG, BMR etc. all being sidegrades of AR or Sniper. The only truly new gun added was the Energy Sword which added a lot (though later, again, more sidegrades to it). H4 is even worse of course. But at the end of the day none of the later entries added anything significantly new or innovative like what was present in the basis of Halo CE (like the needler).

In the end the only things later entries fixed were, to an extent, level-design and encounter design (hit and miss, though H3 definitely a hit). Everything else added has either been a sidegrade or a distinct downgrade. Which I think is a shame.

Because when I was playing H4 for example, everything I liked about it....was something that wasn't made by 343 industries. It was what was made by Bungie .. while making Halo CE. And it was a similar feeling I had with the other titles too. The best thing in Reach is the enemies and weapons from Halo CE. You know? Curious about your take on this.

Played a couple Reach levels, it's alright so far. Needle rifle is fun, but Needler hits only count when hitting flesh, sad day. Really, really not a fan of sprint.

>H2 Arbiter checkpoints
Forgot to reply to this. I think the checkpoints are based on a mix of killing nearby enemies and reaching certain points in the level, so once you start to pull out the active camo cheese it gets wonky. Sometimes you can kill a couple enemies at the end of the section and it gives the checkpoint to you.

>All good things flow from Halo CE
I kinda see where you're coming from, and I agree to a point, but I wouldn't go so far as saying the other games have added nothing. Some thoughts:

Vehicle combat in general has been greatly improved across the main trilogy. In CE you basically have two options for dealing with heavy armor: another vehicle or rockets. 2 and 3 expanded on this by adding more anti-armor weapons, more vehicles, boarding/hijacking, exposed gunners for Covenant vehicles, vehicle weakpoints, and EMP shots stalling vehicles.

This creates much more variety within the already existing options, while introducing new options (like hijacking) with their own nuances (like EMPing a Ghost to catch up to it, killing a Wraith gunner to safely board, kill the driver, and steal the Wraith). The cherry on top is the Scarab, who interacts with the other vehicles in different ways and allows for a multitude of approaches.

Items in 3 are also kind of interesting, you can save them for certain situations or use them as they drop. Killing the Brutes before they use their item makes them drop it, which adds more considerations to encounters, especially if you're hunting for that shiny Invincibility from the Chieftains.

For weapons I kind of agree, but IMO you're doing the brute shot a bit dirty. Unlike the rockets, brute shots are moderately common across 2/3/ODST, and they are less "heavy" than the anti-armor weapons (rockets, Spartan Laser). The 6 grenade magazine allows you to either burst down one tough target or split fire between small ones (such as Jackals, the splash is excellent for getting around their shields). The bladed melee attack is much more useful than I would have thought: generally great against 3's Flood, and helps you play more aggressively against Covenant. The major downside is the low ammo, so you can't usually use it as a "primary weapon" like you might the BR/carbine.

Agree on levels/encounters, easily the biggest improvement.

Enemies are kinda ehh, other than the aforementioned Scarab I basically agree. H3 Flood enemies are good.

Overall I would say the statement as you've phrased it is somewhat hyperbolic, but I agree with the mentality behind it. All the games are mostly refinements of the foundation laid by CE, plus other experiments that didn't work out.

Even just playing the first couple Reach levels, I can sense them groping around for inspiration from FPS contemporaries (Call of Duty etc.), rather than having a sense of what can be built on from previous games. It is a shame, I'm sure you could add plenty of new systems without diluting or spoiling the core Halo experience.

> Reach
The sprint feels...so off. I saw it was in Infinite as well and it just doesn't feel right in Halo. It was all about detailed movement, and having this "imma flinging my gun around" just doesn't feel like it belongs here. At least Reach had it as an optional move which is outshined by some later abilities...but still.

> checkpoints
Yeah I'm starting to feel this might have been done to make running past things a challenge. You can technically just run past half these games if you're good, but your punishment is a lack of checkpoints which is a neat little balancing act they're doing.

> my point
Glad you took it in good spirits, I wasn't sure on my wording and all the points. You brought some good ones to the table. I agree Vehicles were massively improved and also how to fight them (that said, fire a shotgun at a Banshee in CE ... you'll be shocked at the damage output, 2 mid-range shots is all it needs). Boarding vehicles is also a good addition. Using EMP to halt vehicles is a great addition too, totally forgot about that one.

Items are a similar point. I like the way they handle them in H3 where they are predetermined but single-use. Reach has them on a CD which I'm never a fan off, while Halo 4 just...gives you random ones. Some, like Cloak, are barely in that game for whatever reason.

Agree the Scarab is gold too.

> doing the brute shot dirty
It has done me dirty so many times, it deserves it

> bladed weapons
Was always curious about the usage of the ... splinter? I think it's called. The SMG of the Brutes. Never could grasp what that weapon was for.

> CE laid the ground work, everything after was either failed experimentation or building upon what worked.
I think that's fair to say, of course with the few exceptions you noted. Just shows though how great CE was when you really look at it. Just started my Legendary run for the first time and it's been pretty intense so far. Without using the mechanics of EMP, line of sight, magnum headshots, knowing how much sniper bullets are needed on Elites etc...I can't imagine even attempting this.

> Reach of Duty
You can also see it in the little other things. There's more moments where you're just 'walking' about, waiting for a setpiece to happen, and you're no longer the leader, but a follower (making it easier to emulate "All ghilled Up", where you constantly follow an NPC). There's also a much browner filter over the game than before (something 343 of course built upon...).

I really loved Reach, but as it went on I started to like it a lot less. The later missions are an absolute drag imo. Curious to see what you think when you finish it.

>Never could grasp what that weapon was for.

I think one thing you are missing from halo 2 and 3 is that some guns are just meant to be shitty, unlike 1.
On high difficulties you will run out of ammo and being forced to use a shitty gun might not be to some peoples tastes, but I love it. Really makes me appreciate the good guns more, and makes me play differently when a gun is trashy.
Uncharted was like this too on brutal.
This is also important for multiplayer balance as well, which you didn't play back in the day.
A lot of general design choices for 2 and 3 were done around multiplayer, it was huge back then.
Like the flare power in 3, it does nothing against the ai, other than making them dodge IIRC.

Why should that be the case though? Most if not all the multiplayer games I grew up playing gave weapons revised stats in the multiplayer compared to the singleplayer, some even giving each mode tools unique to their own. Halo could've done this as well. Never a fan of when Multiplayer influences Singleplayer - the shotgun didn't need to become a confetti-cannon, leave that nerf to the multiplayer (with Halo 2 I can excuse it since apparently the title was hell to develop).

I do like the notion of having a 'bad weapon'. Didn't look at it that way.

Yeah again, you had to be there ha. Multiplayer was all that mattered for a lot of people, for halo 2 I was one of them, much like call of duty these days.
So for better or worse it really was at the forefront of design.
I agree that there should be separate balancing, but this was before the days of hot fixes and patches.

Halo 1 was essentially a single player game for the most part, and the weapon balancing reflects that.

Older games also had that usually, even some of the older Bond games that only had splitscreen MP had unique weapons or different stats for weapons in the MP which was quite a nice touch for such budgetted games.

That said I can understand that MP was more a focus. IIRC Halo 2 really gave birth to XBLA in general right?

>Bond games that only had splitscreen MP had unique weapons or different stats for weapons in the MP
Wow never heard of that, sounds cool.

Yeah from what I remember xbl was "just" halo 2 lol, like you could play other games but people just played halo 2. I played Halo 2 well into 360 generation, up until the day Halo 3 came out.

MW2, Halo 2 and 3 were the big MP shooters I got into. Nothing has grabbed me since.
Fantastic maps back then.

Used to play a ton of split screen back in the day, I played some bond games but didn't know about different mp weapons.
Played a lot of red faction 2 split screen.

Yeah for me the FPS online boom was Delta Force on PC, I must've logged a zillion hours on it. In terms of console shooters it wasn't until World at War to be honest, when online gaming was far more established (didn't have an Xbox growing up). Played a tontonton of MW2 too and later Black Ops (which ended up being my fav).

I do miss those splitscreen days. Me and my friends used to just have entire days where we'd sit down and just mash through games like Smash, Nightfire, Timesplitters - great stuff. Seems a lot harder to do these days (both in the games not offering the option, and life getting in the way).

I do remember when Halo 2 went 'offline' and that it was big news, with players keeping servers up to protest it going offline.

> bond games
Yeah, like the Agent under Fire I mentioned recently has a few exclusive guns like a lasercannon while also changing how some work (sniper is less accurate, shotgun bigger spread) and you can now grapple on every surface instead of just the predefined ones the campaign has (probably so you couldn't snap the game in half haha). It's just that little extra mile which I found to be pretty sweet. You can treat them like seperate entities. Just wish Halo did the same in the future (or will do so with Halo Infinite at least).

Finished Reach, fun overall.

Armor abilities are worse than 3's items but can still be fun. Favorites are Jetpack for the flanking potential and mobility, and Drop Shield for the combined protection and healing. I dropped Sprint whenever I could just because it felt so bad to use.

Levels were good overall, I liked the middle ones the most. I see what you mean with the wave defense sections near the end, but I didn't find it that bad. Favorite was Tip of the Spear. Space flight section in Long Night of Solace kinda sucked.

You have an invincible Noble Team member with you very often, so you can do some cheesy stuff with that. I baited a Sword Elite into my teammate to get a shot on him, I'm sure you can do other wacky stuff too.

Enemies are the classic Halo ones pretty much. Brutes are a hybrid of their Halo 2 and 3 versions now, but they don't all have brute shots so it's okay. Helps differentiate them from the Elites.

Weapons are pretty similar to 3, with a couple changes. Needler is kinda sad now, but Needle Rifle is what the Carbine should have been since 2. 3 flesh hits = boom, which is very effective against Brutes and the backs of Hunters. New brute shot type gun feels like trash, RIP. Grenade Launcher is lovely, remote detonation with EMP effect is awesome to use. Pistol is good again, AR is kinda alright, DMR is powerful but boring, great sound effect though.

The beginning of the game felt a bit too much like COD for my tastes story/dialogue-wise, but after the first few levels, it wasn't an issue really. I love how menacing and alien the Covenant feel in this game. Fantastic music too, might be my favorite OST of the series.

Good game overall, but I'm not surprised Bungie stopped working on Halo after this, Reach could have been so much more considering it followed up 3.

My Halo rankings:
S: 3
A: CE, ODST
B: Reach
C: 2

I'm not playing 4 on MCC, I would have to buy it for $10 and I'd prefer to not contribute to any sort of sales metrics for that game. Might be able to find my old 360 disc and play it on XB1 I guess.

Forgot to add, the vehicle combat in Reach seems much more shallow than in 3, that takes it down a peg for me.

Overall completely agree with those notions. The Space Flight also wasn't my cup of tea, especially considering how you could just die in a second if you didn't know what was going on.

Curious about your reasoning for 4, it's included for free in MCC. Why not play that version?

> Vehicles
I'll never forgive them for changing the Banshee controls in Halo 4.

On Steam you can buy the games individually. I bought a few of them a while ago because I didn't intend to play the whole series. Once I changed my mind, it was cheaper at that point to just buy the ones I was missing except 4.

Ah! Gotcha, makes sense. I'll probably buy the MCC later this week on Xbox as a physical disc. Replaying a game that I'm paying for with a subscription service doesn't sit too well with me haha, rather use GAMEPASS to experience new experiences instead of grinding out more Halo.

To note, started my Legendary run and found my first real roadblock. The 'waves' on "Truth and Reconciliation". Absolutely fucking brutal. 8 waves of enemies with nothing but scrap guns, little cover and a few dumb marines to help you out. And if you die you're doing it all over again, including the fight leading up to it.

Not going to give up, but it's rough man.

That space fight in Reach on Legendary is ridiculous. I had to cheese it by hiding behind the big ship in the background and occasionally popping out to take shots at things. I couldn't survive longer than about 30 seconds trying to play "properly".

Might have to revisit some of these on Heroic if you've both enjoyed them. I never really considered the Halo games to be that good, but I played most of them as a teen. Maybe I'd appreciate the game design more now...

I would recommend it honestly, so far on Heroic (and probably also on Legendary) at least Halo 1 and 3 are really fantastic games imo, also on a mechanical level, just great stuff.

>Not going to give up, but it's rough man.

1 is really bad on legendary imo, only ever played legendary difficulties in coop. Still, ever really enjoyed it. Heroic is the sweet spot.

Started anew on my original Xbox to get the original vibe. Have to say it is still a great game and dear god this must have blown people away graphically back then. That said I'm starting to agree with you more man, Legendary...it isn't my thing either. It's challenging, yes. But it also feels a bit too overtuned at times for a singleplayer experience.

So I've been replaying Halo 2 on the original Xbox this last week and I have to say I've come to like it a LOT more now that I'm playing it this way. It's easy to overlook just how ahead of its time this title was by playing the Anniversary Edition. But playing this on a machine of the same generation of the PS2/GC really hits home just how many trends have been taken from this title in terms of setpieces, encounter design etc. (and of course butchered).

I glanced over the dual-wielding at first, and I'm liking it a lot more now. Same with the Brutes. The brutes were these horrible enemies for me initially, but now that I'm more familiar with the game it really is an enemy type that pushes you to use/master high-damage techniques. Like using cloak+assasinate with the Arbiter, having enemies in-fight, using carbine headshots or dual-wield Needlers. Or hell, dual-wield Plasma Rifles for maximum pain.

Dual Wielding I have to say really gets better for me. I'm constantly swapping weapons around mid and post fight for optimal setups depending on engagements, ammocount etc. Every tool seems to have a great usage. There's some overlap that started here i.e. Battlerifle/Carbine and RPG/FuelGun etc which are more reskins with minor changes. Still, I'm loving it so far again.

I'm really enjoying running through the campaign more and more on Heroic. I haven't touched Legendary though. I think this game really is one that gets better with repeat playthroughs when you know where the 'bullshit' segments are and how to deal with them, like NGII in some respect.

Gravemind is terrible though. And I think the flying dual-wielding elites might be this game's IS ninjas haha.

I agree on the influence aspect, you can absolutely see how it set the standard for SP campaigns after.

The game itself still has a sour aftertaste for me though. Beam rifles are way too common, drones just suck to fight (someone online mentioned getting a plasma stick on one to kill a big group, maybe that would help), shields disappearing after a certain point, Arbiter levels are cheesy and just exhausting to play (not in a good way).

Like I get that you kill Brutes quickly with carbine headshots and all, but it's just not that interesting to me I guess? IDK, I'm having a hard time articulating exactly what I want to say here.

The Gravemind "hot start" is funny in retrospect. There's a dumb level in Plutonia where you start off with a chaingunner shooting you from behind immediately, Gravemind start is sorta like that but 100x worse.

Maybe if I played the game again I would change my mind, like you're saying, but I can't say I want to go back to it. Ehh, maybe at some point.

Note that I detested the game as much as you did after my first run through, so we were pretty much on the same page. Don't know, the game really hit something with me on the second time through. I think it's "knowing" what's up, what you can expect etc. Heroic really is the sweet spot though, I just started Legendary and it is just unfinished as hell. Gouf on Twitter had a good comment about it a while back "made for no one, tested by no one".

> gravemind hotstart
Found you could just jump to the upper balcony and cheese the whole fight, helped a bunch.

> drones
They're terrible I agree, even on the repeat.

> arbiter
I kind of liked them on the re-run, you can sort of stealth them with stealth+assassinate, especially in that second-to-last mission of him where you start out with just a plasma gun and a bucketload of Brutes in your way. I dislike how he's so limited in weapon load-out at the start though.

I'd be curious to see if you'd like the game more on the second run through like I did, though I really can't blame you for not doing that, or not liking it on the second run through either. It really is rough around every edge.

> legendary
Gave it another few tries but it really just isn't my jam. There isn't even a checkmark in mission select that says "you beat this one on legendary" for bragging rights like in Halo 1. My biggest gripe with the mode is that Halo fundamentals still apply, but you are just too vulnerable. I've died in what can be called frames. Dualwielding Elites will melt you before you can blink, so you generally play insanely careful with the elite-combo constantly instead of playing to the game's strenghts in terms of mechanics. Clearly unfinished mode. Decided to just play the game on Heroic instead.

Yo Roy, Since I have a Series S now, If you want to play some Halo Coop one day let me know.
I played this series almost exclusively coop, it is such a good time.
Legendary is much more enjoyable with two people, since you respawn after a set time if there are no enemies around.
The tactic becomes making sure one player is always playing it safe, and the other just plays balls to the wall crazy. Stuff you would never do solo.
I am just hedfone on Xbox Live.

Didn't link it here yet, but it really just looks great. I hope it is just as fun in practice. Anyone else here going to play it day one?

I’ll be all over Infinite. Just signed up for gamepass again and got 3 months for $1(no idea how) so I’ll be there.

How the hell did you get 3 months for 1 buck haha

Not sure. Went to renew to derp around with halo collection and some other games, and the prompt said “join for $1, plus 2 bonus months”. I especially don’t understand because I’ve been a member before.

Hell of a deal, gonna see if I can't get that too. Probably doing it in anticipation of Halo Infinite, wouldn't surprise me. It's nice that it's a day-1 GamePass title. Half surprised it's even getting a physical release.