By Sam Coles:
When Halo The Master Chief Collection was first
announced back at E3 of 2014 I was super excited as it had a from the ground up
remake of Halo 2, not only that it came with Halo 1, 3 and 4 with frame rates
of 60 fps and 1080p resolution. It’s great you can play cleaner versions of the
games; however when the game came out it was marred with technical issues such
as awful matchmaking where you could be waiting up to an hour for a game
coupled with crashes and glitches. It took 343 almost a year to get the into a
working state with over 22GBs of patches to fix it, so after all the controversy
is it worth picking up for your Xbox One? Yes.
Halo The Master Chief Collection is a package that
comes with Halo Combat Evolved Anniversary, Halo 2 Anniversary, Halo 3 and Halo
4. Halo 2 has had the most attention as the cutscenes and graphics have been
overhauled as this collection was released to celebrate the 10 year anniversary
of Halo 2. It’s a great way to play through all four games from start to finish
whether you are playing it for the first time or you want to do a full
Legendary play through from 1-4, you can customise playlists to suit your needs
and play style and it’s great. It’s a great way to get into the series if you’re
a new Xbox One owner or if you’ve never played a Halo game.
The gameplay is great and it’s interesting to see
how the gameplay has changed with each game and how it has evolved or devolved
depending on who you’re talking to. The first game was somewhat traditional as
a shooter as you have these big wide open spaces exploring and looking for
health kits etc. Yes health kits the original Halo did not have regenerating
health only your shields will regenerate. Halo 2 was more focused on the narrative
with story swapping between two protagonists Master Chief and the Arbiter. Halo
3 felt like the original Halo with the huge and wide open spaces and 4 was
heavily focused on the narrative with the relationship between Chief and Cortana.
Multiplayer at launch was a total mess where
matchmaking would not work what so ever where I remember waiting for 45 minutes
for a match. These issues have been ironed out and it’s fantastic, you can
customise playlists from all 4 games which can be a bit jarring switching
between gameplay from each game. There is a lot of content when it comes to the
multiplayer and the ability to mix the games up keeps everything fresh.
In terms of visuals Halo 2 got the most attention as
it was the 10 year anniversary of Halo 2 when the collection came out and it
looks amazing where everything has been made from the ground up. The cutscenes
done by the folks at Blur Studios look absolutely stunning with new textures
and animations coupled with the excellent facial animation.
Not to say that the other games didn’t get a bit of
TLC Halo 3 looks vibrant and clear compared to the 360 version the environments
really shine in this version although the character models do look blocky. Halo
4 looks like it belongs on the Xbox One with the sharper textures and smooth
frame rate, you can really tell that 343 push the limits of what the 360 could
do back in 2012 with the visuals, Halo CE looks a bit drab but it’s nice to
have a smooth frame rate.
Halo The Master Chief Collection had a rocky start
back in 2014 but is the best way to play Halo 1-4, so if you want to play
through them again or if you’re new to the series and are an Xbox One owner
then this is a good place to start. This game is fairly cheap these days so it’s
a bargain of a package.
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