Probably one of the biggest and most iconic releases for the Xbox or, just maybe, Microsoft in general Halo The Master chief collection is now available for Xbox one exclusively, Incase you don’t know what a master chief is or are wondering how a halo tastes halo the Halo: The master chief collection is a collection of the four main games in the halo franchise a first person sci-fi shooter. This means a revamped Halo 1, 2, 3 and 4 are included in this edition amongst other exciting new goodies. Although halo one has been already re-glossed a couple years back from its original iteration to halo the anniversary edition both halo 2 , 3 and 4 have not been touched since their original release’s. I would question what have you been playing not to know about this and how and why are you reading this but I guess that isn’t the point. Since there is a total of four games in this monolith collection, then I guess it is time to get started with the game and with a series that has branched for more than 10 years , it’s time to hitch-up Skippy and blaze through these awesome years as fast and accurately as possible.
It’s time to start at the beginning, where you would start with any great saga Halo Anniversary, well actually were going to start a bit before that in the menu. The main menu is incredibly straight forward with the opening Halo thematic opera opening which is about iconic as its protagonist and its simple breakdown of the modes. The modes are split into campaign, multiplayer, Playlists, options and careers and Extras along vertical bars across the top of the screen. These then filters down as when you go deeper into the area to different campaigns, missions, etc. However, probably the best thing about this is that due to the simplest layout of the menu beforehand, you can see all that is in the next layer down as it were without going into it and when you decide you know what you want to do it collapses the previous menu up above with the rest. You’re probably wondering why I feel this is worth discussion, however, there is nothing worse than being stuck in an over complicated menu itching to play the game and spending most the time figuring out how to go and do what you want especially when it’s a game with so much too it.
But back to the beginning (I guess you could call that a prelude), the first game Halo anniversary. The story starts off with you Mater Chief is being asleep on board the UNSC ship Pillar of autumn. The ship is then attacked by the covenant, a group of alien races that pretty much hate the human race. AS the technicians quickly trying to fix you back into working condition before the aliens can destroy the ship your ship is forced to crash into the nearby planet which as the story progresses, turns to out to be an ancient weapon called a halo created by the forunners – a ancient long dead race. Later you find out that the halo was built to kill what is deemed to be the most dangerous threat to all sentient life and the world, the flood. Who is the flood? Well, they’re just your everyday parasites that jump into the bodies of the dead and use them as their meat puppets to give you hell and usually scare the living shit out of you.
The game allows you to switch between both the old original version with the old graphics and basic rendering and the new glossed over version with a slight tap of the select button in game. Personally, it seemed to me the switch from old to new and back was a lot clearer than it had been in the anniversary edition occurring a in the blink of an eye. Which is great , but can sometimes lead to a bit of an overload on your senses at times as a sudden change of scenery, familiar but different , can lead you to forget where you are. Also, you cannot switch during a cut scene which isn’t really an issue, however, would have been nice if I could have played it in its old state and watch the more modern cut scenes.
The introduction tutorial on the first mission bugged me a little, this is due partly to the games concern of branching the game’s control system so it wasn’t a hassle to keep switching controls each time you jumped into a new campaign or a different iteration of the multiplayers. It did this brilliantly by the idea of “universal controls”. So why oh why, why, do I need to spend a couple minutes playing with the basic invention of movement and camera controls. I use the same ones in every game! So what I do not need is to practice looking around in controls I feel comfortable in on and then inverted controls and then back to the ones I feel comfortable with. This probably was in the original halo but if I am honest, I can’t remember it, probably because I didn’t want to because it was a part of the game I wanted to forget. I also noticed the music dropping suddenly while running around on the first level may be due to my blatant disregard for regularity and constant switching with the old and new. However, I am breaking egg shells here, these were very minor things and could not stop the sheer joy when seeing the warthog get dropped for the very first time in both the new and old graphics, or third time in my case. It also reminded me how hard the warthog was to steer in the earlier iterations and what an amazing handbrake it had, seriously it stops it dead. All the vehicles controlled like I remember them controlling – the scorpion banshee and ghost and although there functionality was a lot simpler than in the future iterations they were still fun and effective to use in the given situations. I mean in the warthog riding with a guy on the turret and a guy with a sniper rifle in the passenger’s seat I was unstoppable! Until I hit a rock and I flipped and everyone one got crushed, again just breaking egg shells.
Apart from that one minor incident with the music suddenly cutting out the audio is crystal clear, even when background music is playing those favourite lines from your favourite characters can be heard like master chief, cortana, the round gabbles of the elites and odd conversations between the grunts and commander ashole keys who expects you to fight of the approaching enemy with an empty pistol, what commander keeps an empty side arm it may as well be a goddam paper weight -ashole.
Overall halo anniversary retains both its simple, humble beginnings that may feel bugged at times like when I was able to get half my scorpion through a wall and other issues discussed, but it also allows the player to play it as a neat polished piece. Not saying that rigid next gen graphics are required for a game as I forgot how funny hunters looked as they sailed through the air when you blew them up with a well-placed rocket. It really gives the player the ability to experience it the way they want it to either through nostalgia or because they’re quite new to the franchise. This gives us a lot of perspective on how far we have come with games not just in a visual sense.
With that done on to Halo 2 the next instalment leaving off where the first Halo ended, admitted I haven’t really played this one much beforehand, I mean I have played most of the other side spin offs like halo wars and odst but only ever played a couple of campaign missions and the odd custom game with friends. Usually I was told “it had the best multiplayer ever” or “the story didn’t make a lot of sense” and as far as I understand it a lot of the cinematic have been re-done to fit in with the current halo universe. The story starts off with a cut scene with a Spartan talking to the arbiter about finding a lost Spartan and that the arbiter fought with him once, that he may know where to find him. This leads arbiter to re-tell the story of Halo 2 were the two once mortal enemies came to an alliance. Halo 2 begins with master chief returning to earth and accepting his war medal for destroying the covenant armada and ancient forerunner weapon when suddenly the covenant attack earth, not only this as events transpire it turns out it is not an invading force and is surprised that there is a human presence. Not only that, but one of the ships contains one of the lead prophets, prophet of regret, as a prophet he is one of the leading classes of the covenant forces. While this is happening the commander of the fleet that failed to stop master chief blowing up halo and most of his armada is dishonourably discharged, publicly executed and sentenced for execution. However the prophets have different plans for this elite and they bestow him the honour of becoming the arbiter – a private assassin for the prophets. His initial task of killing an elite heretic, fwhich leads him to discover the oracle, the monitor from the first Halo also known as guilty spark. As the game moves forwards the two seemingly separate tails interlink and with the discovery of a new halo, an inner race feud with the covenant, the introduction of the grave mind and re-emergence of the flood and of course the incredible tight spot this puts earth in with the whole covenant armada bearing down on it.
The original graphics don’t much differ from the first Halo, however, pretty much everything else does. Again, as in the first Halo you can switch between the old and new graphics quite seamlessly and also do this in cut scenes. Comparing the old and new graphics in this case seems like there two separate games- more so than in the first halo maybe due to the cinematic being closer to something of the fourth halo which is only heightened by the stark contrast between old and new. Other changes from the new and old are the HUD as the radar and the shield are moved around and also you get no health. Nope, none. If you’re out of the shield and in the middle of a fire fight, then you are screwed and are about to learn a harsh lesson about human limits. The re-composure for the music in the updated music is brilliant too as didn’t realise you could make breaking Benjamin’s song blow me away sound any better. However, there were many glitches in the classic halo 2 mode where I would quite frequently in some levels have ghosts spawn holographic ally on me like real ghost or have a phantoms just suddenly disappear. There were also a couple of instances where the game just crashed on me like when I picked up the rocket launcher for the first time and it told me to lock on to one of the phantoms guns and fire. I Also had one occasion were it would kick me back to the single player lobby when I tried to load up outskirts after saving and quitting at the mission start.
However, Halo 2 delivers a lot and is a key part of the saga, not just narratively but generally to the whole universe of halo as new weapons are introduced for the first time in the franchise such as the brute shot, smgs, the covanent sniper rifle and of course the beloved BR. Not only new weapons, but the good old duel wielding allowing combos like dual wielding a two needler’s to allow you to unleash pure pink spikey pain. Other modifications that come with this instalment are the introduction of new enemies such as brutes, drones and the scarab. However old units are not left out as there are more types of elites, and the good old parasitic flood can now drive vehicles! Yep, zombies that can fire a tank at you I ‘am pretty sure you can’t get more terrifying than that.
The game is split into 15 missions in which you mostly play as Master Chief, however, there are a few where you play as the arbiter. Although the gameplay of these two do not change much at all or even noticeably the experience sure does and not just because the arbitier has a pinky -purple HUD. By this I mean the kind of missions arbitier seems to begin with are a lot more to the point and how he interacts with different races in the covenant is a lot different which gives you a lot more insight into the arbiter and the general covenant in general expanding on the whole halo universe. Although fighting the flood in an elevator for ten minutes wasn’t great – it felt like an annoying obnoxious loading screen.
Halo 2 has an incredible amount of unique content added to its master chief addition too, as there are a hell of a lot new skulls like sputnik, ghost and Envy. There is even a skull called scarab Which lets you shoot scarab blasts out of any weapon which are available to use on any mission from the get go. However, if you feel like it you can still collect these skulls and find the new terminals and dolls scattered across the game’s missions.
Overall, Halo 2 delivers, as with halo CE, on both its traditional original and its hi-ressed up graphics version, especially in the cinematics that capture the original cinamatics and improve on it greatly. The gameplay may stay the same in most respects, however, due to its new aesthetic shininess and the terminals, dolls and skulls added to the campaign it still gives a new somewhat familiar experience.
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Half way done and almost there hang in there, the next two shouldn’t be so new to anyone. The third instalment of master chief’s tale is Halo 3. Starting a little while after the Halo 2 as master chief has been presumed lost and the people of earth have almost been hammered into oblivion by the covenants ridiculously big armada, even though the remnants of the elite insurrection have teamed up with the surviving soldiers there is little hope for humanity’s future. Not only that, but the prophet of truth has found what he is looking forward to start the great journey which means firing the halo rings eradicating all sentient life. Then, just as master chief is found (without cortana as she had to stay behind on the convent ship high charity) and joins the fray and with things looking up they only stay that way for a moment. The covenant ship high charity appears crashing into Earth with its housing of the flood and the sentient collection- gravemind. So just like Halo 2 everything starts out pretty badly for humanity.
The game plays core doesn’t change much from the second Halo and not a lot more is introduced compared to the second halo. The HUD, again, is a little different and you feel like you seem to take more damage out of your shields but not by much in either case. Also, you can still duel wield, however, it is still limited to just the small covenant and ones arms except for the needler which cannot be dual wielded. As the Elites have joined you in the fight there is a slight bigger variation on the brutes with chieftains and various different armored brutes and although they don’t berserk like they did in the second halo they do get pissed off when having their armor obliterated. Also you can remove turrets and walk around with them and a new turret is introduced that is pretty much a vehicle specific rocket launcher. There is also a pistol, shotgun called a mauler which can be duel wielded and two new grenade types. A firebomb to light an enemy on fire and watch a they frantically run around screaming and a brute stick which sticks to the enemy like a sticky grenade but explodes outwards with spiky shreddy needles.. This iteration also introduces the chopper, a brute bike with a lot of firepower. Halo 3 also has a new flood type introduced, however, the Stalker which can either run about on the walls and turns into a stationary flood turret or evolve even further into a monstrous flood monster. How the enemies behave is slightly different too, assuming you haven’t got any skulls on the brutes are a lot less agile and the drones don’t seem to be as fast as they were. Also, you can’t change from classic to none-classic mode as it is only a slightly graphically improved version from the original. The biggest change that halo 3 made was the introducing equipment that the player can use such as cloaks, deployable shields and radar jammers which still are there and behave in the exact same way as they did when Halo 3 was created.
I believe the game’s visual fidelity has been touched up as although I can’t remember what the original looked like. I’ am pretty sure it looked like that to me now thinking back to it. However, this is probably not true, meaning that they have brought it up to my fond memory of the most played games of the franchise for me. Which is great and although nothing has been added, the skulls are in the same place and the terminals display the same cryptic messages it is quite nice to enjoy it again. In-fact , I was pretty surprised how many of the hidden locations I remembered from all those years ago, yet I couldn’t remember my password for my Bitbucket account in the same day, not quite sure if that says more about the game or me.
Overall, Halo 3 is halo 3, it may be touched up a little bit, but it’s pretty much the same experience, focusing more on being protagonist the master chief and cortana than the previous halos it’s still a good experience and with everything else in this collection there is sure no reason for it to be anything else.
With the covnant defeated, the flood threat extinguished and the universe safe, we can assume the tale of master chief is done. Wrong. Halo 4 starts four to five years after the last halo. Since having the ship being torn in half by the portal home meaning that proceeding home with it isn’t an option mastchief and Cortina decide to wait it out by sending a distress beacon and placing master chief in cryogenic sleep. He is awoken not to find a friendly rescue ship to drag him back to earth for a bunch of shiny medals, but too the ship being scanned by some unknown invader only to realise that they are being dragged into a forerunner planet surrounded by a covenant armada. This isn’t all as due to the long amount that has past cortana has developed rampancy. Rampancy, In A.I speak it means cortanas thoughts multiply at an exponential rate coursing the A.I to think itself to death, however, in are speaking it means you goes crazier than the mad cat lady with a crossbow full of kittens. Later we find out that there is also an alive forerunner prisoner at this new facility known as the didact and that it really doesn’t take too kindly to humans threatening to “encrypt” the whole human race and finish what the didact started.
Halo 4 mainly focuses on master chief, even more so than halo 3 and also tells us a little bit more about the forerunners like Mr didact which sounds like some kind of knockoff tic-tech brand. The mission’s re-main pretty much the same as they did in the original halo 4. The elite plasma pistol is replaced with a storm rifle which looks similar to the covenant carbine, but fires like an assault rifle, the saw machine gun, which is like an assault rifle that’s just taken a bunch of speed and the sticky detonator which looks like a pistol but plants little c4 style explosives on to anything. This Includes an Elites head. Also on the heavier side the heavy weapon the rail gun is introduced here capable of blowing away the most stubborn of creatures and the dreadnought style mantis is available allowing you to gun down, blow to little chunks or just plain stop your enemies to death. Master Chiefs look is updated to a more modern and shiny finish compared to the last three and all the UNSC and covenant weapons remaining are updated to a new aesthetics. But, the aesthetics are not the only things that have changed to master chief as now a triumph of human genetic engineering can run without the use of any equipment. The equipment is still there and unlike in Halo 3 it doesn’t disappear as soon as it is used, although this change does mean it has a limited time while it’s activated and has to be recharged. When you can use cloaking, deploy a sentry turret or deploy a temporary energy riot shield you are not going to hear me complain. However the biggest introduction here is the Prometheans both in the new enemies you encounter such as the crawlers which travel in packs running about on any surface they can find to disorientate you and the knights which are bigger,stronger Prometheans equipped with shotguns, sniper rifles, incinerator cannons, the ability to warp around the map and a big old sword to one-hit kill you. Halo 4 also introduces the promethean grenade which I didn’t ever find much use for however, does look pretty if you manage to catch something in it. This reminds me that I have left one of the more irritating promethean units out the watcher. The watcher can place shields over allied troops, throw grenades back at you and also revive dead knights – a real supportive support class. However, you are allowed to use a lot of the promethean weapons yourself, such as the binary rifle a rifle that surpasses the sniper file, the incineration rocket which shoots a blast that releases a bunch more explosions after, the bolt shot which is a small pistol which can be charged to shoot an even stronger round at your foes and the scatter shot which is a shotgun that shoots what appears to be rays of light for devastating effect.
Overall, like halo 3 the experience as exactly the same as halo 4 was when it was released and since it has not been long enough to forget and blissfully remember all those great things that it brought to us all I can really say about it is it’s there. Obviously it still contributes massively to the master chief collection as without it, it would be the collection of the Halo games except halo four which sounds ridiculous. I am not saying there is anything wrong with this just that there isn’t anything particularly new or reminiscent about it unless you have never played halo 4 or are a time trailer for twenty years from now.
Now we’re done with the main part of the collection, the four campaigns and talking about what actually is in each of them and how they have been updated and added into the collection it’s time to talk about some other the other aspects of the Halo master chief collection such as the playlists. By playlists I do not mean the multiplayer I mean a new mode that has been introduced into the halo universe and what they actually are kind of contained in its name.
The playlist allows you to play missions either across one or all of the campaigns in a row without stopping. This doesn’t sound like much until you realise that it is separated into lots of different areas so if you are feeling like playing all the epic battles across the current saga or playing all the missions where you sneak about stealthy slowly picking your enemies off with a sniper rifle you can. If you are feeling really brave or bored you can also play the entire master chief saga of forty five missions too! This doesn’t mean you have to do it all in one sitting as you can save and quite, come back a day later and continue with your current playlist. This doesn’t mean that your campaign is overwritten as each playlist, like the campaigns, save independently so if you are in the middle of something in the campaign than don’t fret you can go back to it after using the playlist.
I do however have a couple issues with the playlists as they are very rigid and structured by that I mean you cannot create your own playlist and have to play the pre-set playlists. However, according to 343 industries they will “add to them over time” which I am not precisely sure what that means. It would be nice if you were able to create custom playlists as halo has done so much with player content with the forge, theatre and customizable multiplayer playlists it seems a bit odd that these are not. Another issue you only come across with the cross-game playlist as due to the playlist bouncing across all four titles it can get a bit confusing as there were plenty of times where I would try to turn my equipment only to turn on a flashlight forgetting that I’m in halo CE and not Halo three or four leading a Hunter to scream in my face and then pound me into the ground and across the floor. There are numerous ways that the playlist and master chief collection helps this issue with the use of universal controls discussed earlier and the fact that it does the missions in chronological order of the games, meaning that if there are missions from halo CE or two then it you will play all the missions in halo one that are in the playlist and then in halo 2. This is probably why the playlists are not customizable as I obviously time went into thinking and making these playlists however, since the halo community made things such as grifball which got placed into halo later as an official multiplayer playlist its potential is dampened by its restriction. Maybe some of these features that they will add to over time will allow to build your own playlist but who knows except 343 industries.
The playlist isn’t the only extra thing added as the first season of halo nightfall also comes in this gigantic package – written by Paul scheuring who wrote prison break and produced by Scott free productions it is a five episode season bridging the gap between halo four and five. You may ask what does this really have to do with the game, however, just because it’s a non-player interactive feature doesn’t mean it is not wanted and will satiate that hunger for the fifth halo while we wait. If that isn’t enough the game also comes with a free pass to the halo 5 multiplayer beta, I am not really quite sure what more you would want except the game itself.
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Another key component that I should probably mention is the achievements, with a whopping 400 to claim ranging from familiar achievements from their original debut like storming the beach in Halo Anniversary CE to other newer ones like killing a thousand knights. Not only this, but with the scheduled fifty more to be released on day one launch there will be a lot to do if you want two hundred percent the achievement’s if you’re that kind of gamer. There is even a feature to help you out this as you can click onto the achievement and the game will send you to the lobby or mission that you need to be on to complete it. However, there is an issue with this as it takes you just to the lobby and isn’t extremely specific, which you could argue is the point of the achievement –to actually earn it yourself. The more irritating issue is I had noticed that I had to complete all the campaigns even to the extent that it had the full 10/10 or 15/15 shown in the campaign sections but, it still said that I had one mission missing. When I used the feature described above in order to see which mission I had perhaps messed up a little it didn’t take me to the individual mission, but just the campaign section to once again behold that I had in-fact done everything. Other than this it seemed to be well implemented and I couldn’t say there was anything massively unbalanced or unfair, so all I can say is good luck to those of you who are going to do the LASO playlists for their achievements.
Back to some more familiar content, the multiplayer. All those features from the old multiplayers are back, the forge, theatre mode and the multiplayer playlists. You may be wondering why there’s any point switching from halo four to this versions as there pretty much the same right. Not only that but all the good gear and armour you spent time unlocking is going to be re-set and take time to get back. However don’t worry as all of this is unlocked from the start of the game with the exception of the new introduction of avatars and nameplates. Also the customisation for the armour is set into the different halos so if you can change it up a little bit. This being said the original customisation for the armours remains much the same with the only real ability for the first two halos for customisation is the colour you want to be.
The Theatre is much like the theatre from the previous games with not a lot new about it, enabling you to save the last game you played where you completely trashed the enemy team or let you take short clips of those heroic last stand moments where it was you, you alone against the entire team. It also allows you to take screenshots just like before of you with a brute grenade on your head so you look like unicorn- you know whatever takes your fancy. However the forge as changed slightly, with the improved power of the Xbox One more things are available such as the incredible ease and accuracy of being able to snap walls, floors and the like to other objects making even the most handicapped of us able to create neat tidy levels. Or create a phallus shaped object that spews out fusion coils. Again, whatever you feel like. I would say that it is so intuitive now that I wish UDK4 and Unity had an engine tool that made level design this easy and I can’t wait to see what impressive maps the halo community do with it.
But, back to the multiplayer. The multiplayer consists of all the multiplayer experiences from the past halos. Yep, every last one of them, including the first halo which to be honest was so odd to play after being so used to the others. This may sound awful, however, it is a merit to it as each multiplayer experience does feel different too won over, whether it be how you move, how the guns look and shoot or even how the magnum can be your best friend in the halo multiplayer and be utterly useless in its future iterations.
Moving more specifically to the halo 2 anniversary multiplayer which plays a lot like the halo 4 multiplayer, the maps feel fairly well done, for the majority of the games the map can feel balanced, however, if the opponent team has too many good weapons in the game can quickly become quite a bias. There are really interesting features in each map such as in bloodline you have the ability to EMP all vehicles around your base disabling them for a good couple of seconds and in lockout you can shoot low hanging icicles to kill unsuspecting players. Another little complaint is also how some of the maps seem to be a little bit too small as there were more than a few times where I would spawn and get instantly sniped or machine gunned to death in the middle of a fire fight. Also, there has been issues with the achievements unlocking like in the main campaign, a lot of that has been resolved now and since it hasn’t even been a week since the games launch its not really a massive issue. Even though these things can make the experience rather frustrating and there have been plenty of times I have felt my controller begin to buckle under the pressure I am exerting on it. The matchmaking can also feel rather slow, like in halo 3 where you would have enough time to go make a cup of tea and then have a smoke and come back and it would still just be loading the maps. The multiplayer experience in general, not just the halo 2 anniversary multiplayers, still remains a fun experience. This is unless you’re one of those people that cares more about their K/D spread rather than having fun then this should not bother you. Plus with the introduction of the gun goose – a mongoose with machine guns attached to it – with its very own capture the flag playlist it still retains that chaotic fast paced fun that most the object type games have.
Overall, and I promise this is the last overall for the review, Halo The master chief collection provides you with both the old basis the series began with that the first person shooter evolved from where it was in on the 15th November 2014 and to the point where it is today, it is a amalgamation of not just the terrific story or the halo universe, and all the multiplayer experiences that pushed it too one of the most played online shooters but also of how both bungie and 343 industries have developed. If you have an Xbox One this is defiantly something you should have on it. So here’s too you 343 industries and I can’t wait to see were you are going when halo 5 has its release.
Disclaimer:All scores given within our reviews are based on the artist’s personal opinion; this should in no way impede your decision to purchase the game.
