Halo: Combat Evolved Is Still RelevantThe individual Halo games hold up really well. The first Halo, especially, is so well-designed that it is well worth revisiting or playing for the first time. Some of the copy-and-paste level design is as bland as it was 13 years ago (oh, the Library), but the core gameplay loop of shooting, grenading, and switching binary weapons feels as fantastic today as it did then. There are some weird additions to this edition I could do without, like random terminals placed around the world that bring you to the Xbox App store to download the Halo Channel, which is related to the Halo: Nightfall streaming TV series. But other than that, Halo: Combat Evolved (as the first Halo is now called) is still an excellent experience.
Halo 2 Is the CenterpieceHalo 2's Anniversary Edition is the Master Chief Collection's pièce de résistance. 343 Industries added new character models, textures, and lighting to upgrade Bungie's venerable sequel to make it a visual match for the better-looking games in the series.
All of Halo 2's cut scenes have been redone, and they are gorgeous and well-directed. To get a sense for how much has changed over the years, you can switch between the new scenes and the old-school in-game engine scenes at any time. Unfortunately, there's a big audio delay if you do. You can also switch between the new paint job and the original graphics while playing, and it's startling to see how far graphics have come in little over a decade. The original Halo 2 looks quaint, but its gameplay, which introduced dual-wielding, a powerful energy sword, and online multiplayer to the series, is just as good as many contemporary shooters.
However, Halo 2 Anniversary doesn't play at 1080p. Though the game maintains 60 frames per second, it uses a lower 1,328 by 1,080 resolution. It is an obvious difference compared to the other games, which all run at 1,920 by 1,080p and 60fps. It's easy to tell because Halo 2's HUD looks a little squeezed in too close to the edges of the picture. Apparently, this downsizing is a necessary compromise to allow for the seamless switching between the old and new engines.
Collection OptionsThe menu for choosing the games and their various options is clean and easy to navigate. You can easily customize your controls with a variety of preset configurations, and you can access multiplayer from the get-go. There are tons of avatars, nameplates, and clan tags to unlock as you play the games, and you can check your campaign and multiplayer stats to see how many matches you've played, the number of assists and headshots you've allotted, etc. There are global and friends-only leaderboards, too.
Then there are the cross-game playlists. These are preconfigured assortments of missions culled from the various games. If you wanted to only play the Arbiter's missions from Halo 2 and ignore Master Chief's side of the story, now you can. If you only want to play the missions that take place in open spaces or tight corridors, you're free to do that, too. But you can't play multiple playlists at the same time. If you begin one and start another without finishing, you have to overwrite the first. This is a bummer if you choose to play the entire 45-mission Master Chief Saga that encompasses all four games, take a break, then decide to try out another, like the Final Four, which groups up the final missions of all four games into one super-climactic romp. Maybe multiple save files for playlists will come in another patch.
Bugs and Multiplayer MishapsI've mentioned patches a few times because 343 Industries is patch-happy. 343 released a massive 20GB day-one patch, because there wasn't enough room on the game's 45GB Blu-ray disc. That act should've been the dead giveaway that the collection would be laced with problems.
So what is 343 fixing? According to the official patch note, a hell of a lot. After looking at the list, it's a wonder this collection shipped at all. Personally, I even after installing the patch, I ran into some bizarre audio issues while playing, like sound effects lasting way longer than they should. The distinct hum of the Covenant Plasma Pistol continued long after I stopped firing it in Halo 3. Additionally, Halo 3's sound effects are way too loud. At the same volume, Halo 2's sound is much lower, so there is definitely still an issue with the sound mixing. Besides the occasional frame skips, I didn't experience anything else too earth-shattering playing the campaign missions, though the exhaustive patch notes and reports of numerous issues like input lag during campaign co-op and Halo 3 and Halo 4 not even starting for some users is proof enough that this collection of old games was nowhere near ready.
Even further proof can be found in the Master Chief's Collection woeful multiplayer mode. Currently, it is missing the multiplayer mode for an entire game. Halo 4's multiplayer, and its customizable loadouts, were removed to let the other games work—but even these games barely limp by. It took me a little over four minutes to jump into a Halo 2 Anniversary deathmatch. The next time, it took me almost six minutes until the session crapped out with a Match Incomplete error. The third time, it failed to connect as the session was full. Then it failed again. The next match took almost eight minutes to connect. The game moved with the speed of a slideshow, complete with grenades hovering in mid-air and every encounter resulting in unfair deaths. The match after that was slightly better, but still suffered frequent frame skips and cheap deaths. After that, I waited over ten minutes. So, yes, the multiplayer is still borked. Let's hope the next enormous patch further fixes things.
A ShameTo 343 Industries's credit, it's at least trying to fix everything. Still, all of this could have been avoided if this collection was simply delayed. Microsoft rushed it out instead of making sure that its biggest and most symbolic release of the year was bulletproof. Halo and its multiplayer-focused action used to carry the Xbox brand and it was supposed to boost the Xbox One. Now we're treated to a who-knows-how-long schedule of damage control and prolonged patch notes while unpatched copies of the game sit on store shelves and inside console bundles at full price.
Perhaps it's a blessing that Bungie's excellent Halo 3: ODST and Halo: Reach weren't included in this collection. 343 Industries would have had to add even more gigs to the digital downloads and patches. We can only hope at this point that 343 Industries finishes the fight by finishing its product, long after the fact. Many Spartans are counting on them, not just for this collection of classics, but for the future of the franchise.
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