I was playing a bit of goldeneye today to test n64 emulation on my recently-purchased xbox one s (spoiler: looks like I'm back to playing on pc), and it was good to get a reminder of why halo was revolutionary. the dual-analog control style that dominates every console shooter today had not yet caught on even though it makes so much sense in retrospect: move your feet with the left stick, move your head with the right stick. most fps titles outside of pc up to now were dominated by tank controls with strafing on the shoulders, and goldeneye follows the same pattern, with strafing on the left/right c buttons and vertical look on the up/down c buttons. workable? yes. comfortable? eh. I'm 23, not 43, so I wasn't exactly playing this shit in my dorm room.

halo in comparison is remarkably intuitive. while not the first to implement proper dual-analog control (alien: resurrection predates it, and one of the rare shooters has a double-controller mode to get dual sticks working), it feels smooth on the xbox gamepad. master chief strafes easily, locks on with subtle (for the time) auto-aim, and glides across terrain without issue. even the vehicle control, while plodding and challenging to master, still gets the job done not only on the ground but in flight as well. each gun is unique and simple to understand from the standard human weapons to the more experimental covenant ones, which keeps the two-weapon limit and the constant scavenging for fresh weapons from feeling like a downer whenever you aren't playing with the assault rifle.

what makes halo ce somewhat disappointing to return to is instead the level design. sure, both silent cartographer and the titular halo still hit hard. the rest of the game unfortunately delves into reams of copy-pasted rooms and confusing backtracking. none of this is surprising given the game's protracted and crunch-heavy development, but it still reflects poorly to those playing the campaign today expecting more variety.

the pillar of autumn: somewhat confusing with its labryinthian structure but for what is functionally a tutorial it does its job. sets up the covenant well and establishes the stakes for master chief.

halo: this is a showpiece level right here. that opening crash leading to you scaling the hill over a gorgeous waterfall while covenant dropships scour the landscape for stragglers. defending the outpost with your fellow marines. receiving your first warthog and storming the bridge within the underground base. and finally, that open area with three different groups of marines to recover... man this is still such a showstopper. exactly paced like an old-school fps should be.

the truth and reconciliation: this hit harder for me the first time I played it a couple years back, and on this replay the section where you're actually on the ship seems dominated by hallways to a deleterious extent. the opening cliffside sneak to the entrance point, still has some neat sniper moments, and the hangar where you first fight the hunters sticks out in my head.

the silent cartographer: another total classic, with the entire level taking place on a small island. there are two outposts you must hit, the first of which having been locked by a separate control center in the middle of the island. there's multiple ways to get around, and the level also features the first appearance of an elite with a terrifying energy sword. conceptually much richer than most of its contemporaries. the story justification and rich sense of connected locality do wonders here.

assault on the control room: first level that really begins to drag. the standard internal room is repeated ad nauseum to the point of feeling almost like you're incorrectly backtracking. occasional outdoor areas break things up nicely, but eventually the vehicles feel mandatory rather than useful tools.

343 guilty spark: what should be the tense reveal of the flood ends up being a confusing mess of near-identical two-story rooms and connective hallways that loops back in on itself. very disorienting.

the library: this level is infamous for being a slow burn, and I can't really disagree. more copy-paste hallways while following guilty spark around. this one also leans heavily on "hold your position" scenarios. probably too much reliance on waiting for guilty spark overall... halo benefits a lot from letting the player set their own pace, and this level fails on that count.

two betrayals: somehow this level is literally assault on the control room in reverse, like one for one identical. to spice it up you have a couple spots where you must fly a banshee up to a room to deactivate some device with your shield, but navigating upwards tends to be trivial so I can't say the level benefits much from it.

keyes: another reused level, but instead mainly from the truth and reconciliation once you're out of the swamp area. that first area is pretty fine, but the second half feels rather stale and relatively lifeless with its dull "get to keyes and then escape" objective.

the maw: much of this level is more hallway battles, but the stakes feel higher from a plot perspective, and the final two setpieces resonate. the engineering bay slowly being overtaken while you methodically destroy the open reactor vents with rockets is a lot of fun to navigate, and the resulting system countdown as you flee in a warthog legitimately stretched my nerves as the numbers ticked down, both from getting immersed in the moment and also the stubborn vehicle physics lol.

there's plenty of good throughout each chapter, but much of the second half melds into sort of a "kill the same enemies over and over again" goo fermented by the rote and perfunctory room-by-room design. without the phenomenal gamefeel this game possesses it would be a launch title curio, and instead it managed to hold up the entire xbox brand for over a decade. a feat no one can take away from bungie without a doubt.

my personal note: lost my save data on my actual anniversary disc, specifically my co-op save. xbox cloud sync sucks. ended up beating it on the master chief collection... wish I didn't have to shell out the money (I bought both from my local mom-and-pop shop at least) but it ran much better in MCC. co-op frankly made me motion sick in the actual 360 version of halo cea.

It definitely hasn't aged the best but playing this game for the first time all the way actually makes me see what makes this genre so great in the first place, Halo Combat Evolved is a pretty fun time especially with the multiplayer component

Let's start by saying this, the remaster isn't great, the atmosphere is kinda lost at certain points, making everything look to bright, plus the music and sound effects sound slightly worse compared to the original which are still good but pale in comparison to the original and while some Character models like Chief himself and the humans look a lot better than the original but others like Cortana and the flood just look off to me and from what I've heard Cortana's model is imported from Halo 3 and it kinda shows, even then i feel the colours look kinda saturated and cheap in my opinion, still the fact you can change graphics on the fly is great since in my opinion the original 2001/2003 presentation still holds up today now with a higher framerate and resolution so it makes my complaints a bit obsolete, now onto the game.

First things first, the Multiplayer, it's great probably one of the fun multiplayer experiences I've had right up there with Mario Kart Wii and Super Mario Maker 2 , it's a bit unbalanced with the Pistol weapon but i had a great time with it mainly due to the map design, each of them feel unique and overall pretty different from your average fps game, there's a lot of variety too while i mostly played Slayer due to being the most simplistic and fun one to me others like Capture the Flag, Big Team Battle and Race are also pretty good so overall Halo 1's multiplayer is really great.

But i'm rating the while game as a package, not just one part and the campaign while enjoyable certainly takes the package down a lot. The story in this game while simple is decent due to strong character writing and vocal performances, you play as the strongest solider Earth has, Master Chief as you journey through this uncharted alien planet, Halo, while fighting thousands of the alien race, the covenant. There's a lot unexplained but you can at least make out the simple goal and narrative, plus the characters are well written such as Sergeant Johnson and Cortana give some well-needed comic relief in the game while not being intrusive , Keyes and Chief are badasses that will do whatever to protect humanity no matter the cost, and the twists in the 2nd Act of the game are pretty well-executed all things considered one gripe i have is that i wish the villain was better developed but overall in terms of story, Halo Combat Evolved is pretty solid as this.

However in terms of gameplay, this is where CE while fun definitely shows it's age here, the controls feel really smooth to use and the weapons here aren't overpowered or underpowered as each Weapon aside maybe the Assault Rifle have a clear use and weakness in each situation you face plus the Health system (which allows you to give a second chance if you're bombarded with enemies) 2 Weapon limit and the 2 types of Grenades (Frags, which are more powerful and Plasma which can stick to enemies) also add good level of strategy to the Weapon Sandbox, the enemy AI is (mostly) and AI as a whole is good as each of them have a predictable and readable pattern they follow in each battle you but each enemy encounter feels unique.

However where this game's age can be easily showcased is the latter half of the game. First the vehicle physics while fun to mess around with feel janky but i guess that's part of the charm but more importantly the 2nd Act, The first 5 levels in this game are a dream though can a bit confusing at times especially in silent cartographer and Halo, but even then it's very isolated in terms of it being bad a solid 8-9/10 due to the fun, challenging yet fair enemy encounters and strategic Weapon sandbox, then the Flood come in, i do think the level they're introduced in, 343 Guilty Spark is decent especially with the narrative it tells but whenever they peep their ugly heads in, the game turns from a challenging yet fair game into a pretty frustrating one, some encounters are fine but others are hell, mainly in Two Betrayals, oh man Two Betrayals, it, Keyes and maybe the Maw though the Warthog chase is pretty epic it's just the bit where Guilty Spark is floating around and thousands of Flood and Sentinels (oh yeah those exist too) just spawn around you all the time but these levels have an insane amount of trial and error even with any weapon i used i had to get insanely lucky, spamming any Grenades i have to even kill them, whenever the AI duke it out i just let them to their own devices and pray the flood get perished, i feel as if the AI is too good for them since they are completely unpredictable yet still unfeasibly challenging too face and that's my biggest issue with the game, the flood they aren't fun to face and i don't know if i'm bad at the game or the AI but i played on Normal so i don't know if Easy fixes this, there is another issue and that is the repeated level layouts but i wouldn't really mind since the enemy layouts and aesthetics are different along with 3 factions duking it out but again the Flood and sometimes the Sentinels kinda damper the theme they were going with the repeated stages.

So overall Halo 1 is game that is dated but i still have some fun with, the multiplayer is basically a 9/10 though the campaign while still enjoyable, the 2nd Act feels rushed (though considering how this game was basically a RTS turned into a revolutionary FPS i can see why) i can see what makes the fps genre so great in the first place and not all fps games are as boring or as vapid as Call of Duty or the Far Cry Games after 3 so i do hope Halo 2 does improve from the campaigns issues (probably not due to the troubled development but that's for next time).

one of the most explosive starts to a game series of all time, halo ce comes at you instantly with escaping the maze-like pillar of autumn and crash landing onto a gorgeous landscape located on an artificial "planet" of sorts known as halo. from there on, you explore some of the most iconic levels of all time with some of the most satisfying gameplay an fps has ever seen (not to mention how innovative the console controls were for its time). the game is truly a timeless classic, and, while it's not perfect by any means (the library is fun the first time and painful during any replays, having to backtrack through 3 different levels isn't exactly the greatest level design), it's DAMN fun and should get anyone hooked on the halo series.

Halo é uma franquia que eu respeito muito mas nunca curti, não sou muito fã de jogos com temáticas espaciais e armas alienígenas então foi o maior fator que me fazia não curtir. Ainda não gosto muito da temática, existem algumas exceções claro, mas normalmente eu costumo evitar. Do nada me bateu vontade de dar outra chance pro jogo, e não é que acabei gostando mais que antes? Apesar de achar apenas bacana dessa vez, acabei gostando muito mais.

O gunplay é redondinho, mas eu sempre usava as armas padrões sempre que podia, não acho legal o feel de armas laser e feel num FPS é algo game changing, mas as armas padrões são bem gostosinhas, especialmente a pistola e a shotgun.

A dificuldade é justa no normal, mas tiveram alguns trechos que me deram vontade de me mutilar, o tanto de vez que eu simplesmente morria pra granada que só Deus sabe de onde veio foram muitos, e eu gostaria de ter uma conevrsa amigável com o indivíduo que achou uma boa ideia dar uma Rocket Launcher pra um Flood. Achei o jogo desnecessáriamente longo também, muitas seções foram apenas pra alongar o tempo.

O plot é bacana, mas é conceitual aqui, não tem muito texto e é praticamente ir de um objetivo pro outro o tempo todo com um plano de fundo justificando, sem muitos acontecimentos ou algo marcante, mas como introdução é bacana. É um ponto muito bem elogiado nos próximos jogos então estou esperançoso.

O ponto mais alto do jogo pra mim é a trilha sonora, ela é simplesmente um espetáculo mesmo com o jogo optando pelo silêncio entendiante a maior parte do tempo. Mas quando a trilha toca, nossa...

O tempo prova que seus próprios gostos e opiniões podem mudar bastante com o passar dos anos, e eu acabei de sentir na pele isso. Não achei Combat Evolved espetacular ou algo do tipo, mas comparado a antes que eu nem chegava perto pra uma jogatina de uma tarde toda, é uma baita evolução.

-undeniably so fucking jingoistic and patriotic it’s kind of sickening in like a /neg way. I mean I wanna give the devs some excuse here, 2001 was a wildly diff time in American history and hopefully the sequels calmed down politically but also I doubt post 9/11 games do at all and by the time they do they’re so caught up in their silly goofy lore. also idk I have had to excuse right wing/libertarian art I like a lot more than I like this but still leaves a bit of a gross taste in ur mouth.
-suppose it helps that the actual plot here is a fucking bore. master chef and blue minx Cortana boring fucking characters, idc about them or what happened to them or why ur fighting aliens lol. which sucks cuz the world here is so fully formed and fleshed out but I’m not watching rlly boringly directed cutscenes to figure out how we got here nor am I reading some nerd ahh book.
-environmental storytelling here hits though, like I feel like I’m able to glean enough from how the maps are laid out to come out w a more satisfying plot line than whatever is actually happening in the foreground. like rlly cool stuff implied about the balance between nature n tech which is like more apropos in ‘23 than ‘01. idk I live in a major metropolitan city w no greenery or nature to speak of whatsoever which is so diff than my rural upbringing. there’s a real seeming living breathing ecosystem here and that’s cute and smth more games should attempt to do.
-tbh I don’t even mind that the back half of this game is just more or less the same maps from the first half slightly tweaked. I like it like thematically, Ie the effects of war and how nothing ever rlly changes, everything is cyclical. real ending of watchmen/beginning of guns of the patriots wave. btw I don’t like watchmen I’ve just read it and think silk spectre/nite owl are cute.
-played through the middle chapters on my phone w game pass while watching the sex and the city reboot w my bf….and I was wearing new brandy melville shirt….life is good
-consistently felt like Michael Cera in Superbad when he’s playing ps2 game and he keeps complaining about how unfair it is.
-the vehicle controls are actually so awful omg, why would accelerate ever be anything other than the triggers or the action button, actually so evil

Revolutionary then for the Xbox brand, hard to stomach now

Halo is probably the only reason Xbox took off at all in 2001. A revolutionary first person shooter from bungie at the time. As someone that grew up mostly in Sony, I never really experienced this series along with the Xbox 360 games as well. Eventually as time went on, I did slowly become interested in the series until this point in time where the Master Chief Collection is fully available on PC and I finally managed to get myself a decent computer. The first halo feels pretty flawed from a gameplay design standpoint with extremely long stages that felt like they went on forever.

The shooting and the guns feel good enough here. I've used every weapon and they mostly felt good to use. Sniper shots are fun to hit, shotgun is actually great here too. The vehicles are decent enough here and manages to make it different from other first person shooters at the time.

That said, The philosophy behind the levels are pretty bad here with the most notorious example being The Library. Stages that seem to go on way too long with no payoff or reprieve makes the combat start to feel tedious. Driving all around a map for some of the stages also just feel boring as well too except for one instance in the end that can be pretty unforgiving but still one of the few great moments in the campaign.

It's the first game in the series and for the time, it does play really well. Didn't even touch on the multiplayer here either which is a big part of this game too but I'm not too interested in the suite of multiplayer features right now considering I just wanted to experience the campaigns myself. A revolutionary first person shooter that still plays well but can be tedious to get through.

This game is special.

It’s clearly not as technically robust as it’s successors but it’s no slouch either. It’s still a solid Halo game with good characters and settings. Many (if not most) of the core elements and themes that make up Halo are debuted in this game. I do however think the Flood is kind of annoying.

Additionally, this game’s historical significance can’t be understated. In 2001, this game not only spearheaded the online FPS boom of 2000s-onward, but it also firmly cemented Xbox as one of the big 3.

As a remaster, this game is good. Being able to toggle between classic and anniversary graphics instantly is very cool.

I suppose it’s also worth mentioning that this game gave us the baddest motherfucker in the galaxy. So that’s pretty cool I guess.

Semper Fi Spartans

It was really great going back and replaying one of my favorite games from my childhood, Halo: Combat Evolved. I was surprised by just how well the game still held up, considering the original came out way back in 2001. The shooting and general gameplay was still really fun, albeit feeling less fluid than newer games in the genre. I also really loved the updated visuals in the Anniversary edition. The new textures really made this game look incredible. The option to switch between the updated and original visuals mid-game was a really nice touch too.

My only real issue with Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, which was my issue with the original game too, was that a good number of the levels just dragged on for way longer than they needed to. I don't know if it was meant to be padding, or if it was made to make the world seem larger, but it really slowed down the pacing at times. It is a minor complaint though as the rest of the game was top notch. This is one of the best shooters of all times.

Pretty fun at times, pretty monotonous at times. Felt like there was too much backtracking especially during the last few missions. Navigation sucks as a result. Heroic difficulty felt way much easier compared to Reach. I would have worshipped the game had I played it at the time of its og release cuz it's a remarkable thing to make something like this in 2001. My rating would've really been higher if not for the repeated segments in latter part of the game, I understand older game almost always reuse multiple segments via backtracking like resident evil but this felt like the game could've been really short if not for the repeated segments. Music was good I guess but the placement was very random. Also the most satisfying thing about the game is it's shotgun 🤌🏼, had so much fun blasting enemies with it and it's a shame the 2nd game's shotgun sucks in comparison.

If this is the game that created the entire console fps generic formula, then i hate you halo :D

Before the halo fanbase starts to kill me, i have played only the campaign and i have no interest in playing the multiplayer, that it seems to be why people love this game so much.

Halo's story is... good? bad? I dont know cause everything is just go from A to B and kill an absurd amount of enemies (and be killed by them). Why is there a war? Is there other races besides human and the covenant? If there is a answer in this game, i didnt get it.

Now lets to what my biggest downside: level design. Holy, they did about 6-7 maps, each map for one chapter, and each map with 3 different rooms that repeat to exaustion. Sometimes i thought i was retreating because it was the same room as before! And you see, that is 10 chapters, 6-7 maps, so yeah 3 chapters just reuse the same map in reverse road.

The gameplay is okay, besides my total hate to give weapons to a zombie enemy (i am talking about you RPG and the explosive one). Shotgun is love and no one can say that i am wrong.

Well, first of the halo franchise. Very medium to low experience but let's see if does get better in later games.

Halo é uma franquia clássica do Xbox, lançado em 2001, Halo: Combat Evolved foi uma grande revolução na época, basicamente sendo o jogo que definiria como fazer um FPS para um console, sim existe o GoldenEye 007 e o Perfect Dark ambos do Nintendo 64, mas foi o primeiro Halo que realmente mostrou como fazer um FPS no console, para comemorar os 10 anos da Halo, a 343 Industries lançou um remake dele para o Xbox 360 chamado Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary e será que é tão bom quanto o Halo: Combat Evolved original ? É o que vamos ver !

Para começar, os gráficos e UAU, para um jogo de Xbox 360 os gráficos do Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary são MARAVILHOSOS, definitivamente um dos melhores do sistema e realmente parece que é um jogo de Xbox One não de 360, a 343 Industries fez um ótimo trabalho.

A Gameplay dele é simples porém divertida, você praticamente vai usar as armas 90% do tempo e existem bastante variedade de armas, você também pode socar e de vez em nunca usar um veículo, que apesar de serem poucas vezes, pelo menos são marcantes.

Os controles dele são o ponto de destaque na minha opinião, muitas pessoas falam que jogar FPS no PC é MUITO melhor, elas talvez estejam certas, mas os FPS que joguei no console sempre funcionaram perfeitamente, no Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary não muda quase nada do original, mas ainda sim é muito boa e bem simples de usar até, pra trocar de arma, socar, mirar e atirar, me acostumei bastante rápido.

A trilha sonora é ótima, sendo bastante épica, principalmente o seu tema principal, mas isso não significa que as outras também sejam ótimas !

A dificuldade dele é boa, eu zerei na dificuldade normal e achei bem justa, não é difícil e nem fácil, ou seja, não fica estressante mas não fica um tédio, pois apesar de você morrer no jogo, você não morre ao ponto de ficar furioso.

O Level Design é muito bom, você sente que não é só um corredor reto com inimigos pra atirar, Halo: Combat Evolved e o Anniversary possuem ótimas fases e o tema delas são bastante diferentes, por exemplo, temos temas de nave especial, floresta, um lugar abandonado com vários Floods, bases inimigas e etc.

Eu acho a duração dele muito boa, apesar de ter 10 Fases, elas são longas o suficiente pra você ter uma boa experiência.

Uma coisa legal no Anniversary é que você pode alterar os gráficos para o Original se você quiser só apertando um botão, ou seja, você pode jogar o original também além do remake !

Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary é um ótimo remake e na minha opinião talvez o melhor jogo da série, apesar de ser simples comparado aos outros Halos, ainda sim é muito divertido e recomendo muito esse jogo pra quem quer começar na franquia.

I'm sure there still exists some embarrassing forum posts of me proclaiming Halo: Combat Evolved to be the greatest game ever made. I was young and easily impressed, though in my defense Halo felt like massive leap forward for console shooters at the time. Despite the very strong impression it left, I never got as deep into the Halo franchise as my friends did. Sure I played 2 and 3, but I didn't touch a Halo game again until Reach released for the PC version of The Master Chief Collection.

In a lot of ways, going back to Halo now feels like revisiting a childhood home. The halls and rooms may feel familiar, but age warps our perception of the past, making the experience just as alien as it is nostalgic. Was this room always so small, isn't the carpet different...? Did they really copy and paste this much geometry, was the assault rifle always trash?

Escaping the siege on the Pillar of Autumn, touching down on Halo for the first time, finding Keyes' horribly mutated and inhuman form; story beats and set pieces that take me back bookended by deeply flawed gameplay and poor level layouts that I apparently gave a huge pass in the early 2000s. The initial joys of pistol-whipping Grunts in the head and hearing the crunch of their skulls caving quickly dissipates when you remember how atrocious the AR is at anything further than mid-range. Excitement building as I remember how good the final escape sequence is in The Maw turns to foreboding as I get the Warthog stuck in a hallway like I'm god damn Austin Powers.

At its absolute worst, however, Halo is a sequence of repeating hallways that become disorientingly samey with combat encounters that rarely present a challenge any more complex than "we put a hell of a lot of dudes in this room." It starts to drag, but then you reach 343 Guilty Spark. The introduction to the Flood is one of the highlights of the entire game. Yet again you're infiltrating a Forerunner facility, and yet again you're probably expecting a series of rote firefights. But, things are different this time. The first few Covenant you encounter are fleeing for their lives, the rest are dead. You quickly come to accept that there is nothing here for you to point your gun at, just halls lined with corpses and painted in blood, and as you descend further into the facility, you start to feel as if you're delivering yourself to something horrible, incomprehensible.

Unfortunately, Halo wastes its greatest twist by making the Flood no damn fun to fight, and from this point on the rest of the game amounts to trudging your way backwards through several levels with the only real variation being that you now get to fight zombies. The Library catches a lot of shit, and rightfully so, but to be completely honest I don't think that level does anything that isn't emblematic of Halo's many flaws so much as it brings them to a scale that is impossible for even the most ardent defenders of the game to ignore. Thankfully, the final two levels (Keyes and The Maw) bring things back around again. Sure, they're just reusing large portions of levels you already played, but I am a sucker for stories that end where they began, and seeing the Covenant so overwhelmed with the havoc they've unleashed that neither side is at all concerned with you creates an excellent sense of urgency. This is no longer a battle between humanity and the Covenant, but rather the Covenant and the Flood. Your side already lost, and that occasional feeling of isolation you've felt during your journey has now become pure dread. You aren't just alone, you're the only one left. There's nothing to save here.

The parts of Halo that hold up for me are those more emotional elements. The story beats, the tension, the atmosphere. I still really like how the Forerunner facilities have this architecture that somewhat betrays the utilitarian nature of the instillation, they're both sterile yet somehow religious. Martin O'Donnell's score is as energetic and quiet as it needs to be, punctuating the action (or lack thereof) perfectly.

The Anniversary Edition features all new graphics, but I played with those off 90% of the time, only turning them on to find skulls and terminals that are only present in that version of the game. It impressive to me that you can hot swap between both versions with just the touch of a button, and that it only takes a few seconds to do so. The few bits I've seen of the updated graphics are.... I don't know, it's alright I guess. Not really a fan, I think Halo loses some of its visual personality despite obviously having more graphical fidelity in Anniversary mode.

My girlfriend and I played through all of Halo in co-op when it first came out, and while fooling around together after beating it I started humming the main theme. "Dun-dun-dun-dunnnnn, dun-dun-dah-dunnnnn..." She broke up with me. Greatest game of all time.

I understand that first games in an extremely successful franchise tend to be rough but lord almighty I was not expecting to be this drained when playing this game for the first time. Halo 1 is repetitious to the Nth degree. You wander around fighting enemies in the same looking empty hallways leading to the same looking arenas for the 50 billionth time over and over again, and that’s not even an exaggeration. The amount of recycling CE does is borderline ridiculous, sometimes it recycles other parts of another level in a LATER level with little to no changes added. And what makes the whole thing worse is that these levels can drag on for an eternity. Just when you want it to end, you find yourself in yet ANOTHER copy of the similar room you were in like 5 minutes ago for the 15th time and you silently beg for the sweet sweet release of death (No Halo 1, haphazardly dumping the flood in a level we were just in a couple of missions ago is not an excuse to force me to play the exact same level we juST PLAYED A COUPLE OF MISSIONS AGO, IT'S STILL THE SAME FREAKING LEVEL).

Gunplay itself is slow and somewhat clunky compared to the other Halo games but it’s to be expected, the enemy design and AI is pretty decent and sets the stage for what will be standard in the future. Music and atmosphere carry this game HARD. I don’t think I’m ever gonna go back to this one ever again.

Played with my partner, giving me the best possible chance with this one. Playing games with her is always wonderful and Halo 1 is really special to her, whereas my memories of it basically boil down to some silliness on Blood Gulch.

This lies a bit awkwardly at the midpoint between the Unreals and Half-Lifes of the world and the then-newly solidifying modern shooter conventions, serving as one of the earliest examples of them present in one place. You've got your two equip slots, your obnoxiously self-serious military theming, your narration / guidance from an NPC through ever-present comms, your dedicated vehicle sections, etc. While that is all the case and is most interesting when thinking about Halo's place in history, what makes it truly stand out is its flirtation with the trends of the late 90s / early 00s that aren't so familiar today...namely the hilarious sandboxyness of it all. Everything is a physics object and constantly flying around the screen, with little thought given to how that can break levels (either in ways that benefit or completely fuck over the player), vehicles are so mobile and also floaty that they're constantly flipping over, being boosted into places they're not supposed to, and otherwise being extremely silly.

The best moments in Halo are when you're pushing the limits of that sandbox and being rewarded either with actual progression or with humor. The worst parts are when you're going step-by-step dryly doing whatever the voice in your head tells you to do in that moment. Strange to think that the latter is what stuck and became the default for shooters.

It's still Halo: CE, a great FPS with great multiplayer. But the new visuals are really lame.

The original version of Halo: Combat Evolved had a distinct feeling to it. The art style was all its own. Covenant interiors had that cold gray and purple color scheme that really tied everything together. It was clearly distinguishable from any other FPS of its generation, but this new updated look is about as generic as you can get. It's undoubtedly technically impressive for the 360 and I can't say it looks bad, but it lacks the soul and atmosphere of the original game.

Thank goodness they decided to let you swap visual styles with the press of a button.

It's still a great game, and the multiplayer still has my beloved pistol. But the campaign is marred by a few levels with WAY too much repetition of similar rooms, to the point that it feels like you're backtracking even when you're technically in a new area.

It still starts strong, it ends strong, and the introduction of the Flood is as unsettling as ever.

Halo: Combat Evolved in an incredibly special and important game. It gave new life to the console fps, and came to define what so many expected out of shooters for a decade. While Halo 1 is nowhere near a perfect game, it is still a very meaningful one.

The first four levels are masterpieces. They all showcase amazing level design and give you plenty to play around with in the Halo sandbox. If the entire game was built like these levels, it would be an easy 10/10.
The next two levels are unfortunately a pretty decent step down in quality. While they're still plenty of fun, this is where Bungie's philosophy of "15 seconds of fun stretched out" starts to crack a little. Seeing the same few rooms over and over again, with very little idea of what the area you're exploring even feels like isn't very fun. But these levels still work, and that's what matters.
The same can't be said for the next two levels. "The Library" is the most infamous levels in the entire Halo series and for good reason. It's pretty bad. No, it's really bad. Going through the same hallway over and over and over and over and over and over again while fighting The Flood (the lesser engaging enemy faction of this game) is nothing but a horrible slog. The following level is a little better, but it still feels like a frustrating slog that mainly exists so Bungie could reuse areas they already created. If the entire game were like this, it would easily be a 3/10 at best.
Thankfully, the final two levels mostly redeem the game, leaving you with a nice satisfying ending. The warthog run at the end can be frustrating, especially with two people, but I still love it.

Of course, we're dealing with the Anniversary edition made by 343 here, not just the original. How well did 343 do in this regard?
Well, not great honestly. The art design ranges from decent, to wildly incorrect, completely ruining the atmosphere the original game was going for. A great example of this is in the second to last level of the game, "Keyes", where the original game shrouded most of the area in intense darkness that could only be navigated through using your flashlight. For whatever reason, 343 decided to make this area completely bright, literally obliterating the original intent.
But even worse than that, is how 343 felt the need to change the appearance of certain objects in the game world for some reason. Some trees and walls will just look completely different depending on which version you're playing. This wouldn't be too bad, if not for the fact that both games work with the original game's collision, meaning that sometimes, you'll be shooting next to a tree that gives you plenty of space in the remastered graphics, but gives you no space at all in the original graphics, resulting in you just chucking ammo into an invisible part of the tree. This is easily the worst part of the whole game for me.

However, despite these problems, I still really enjoy the original game, and the remaster 343 gave us. It's still fun to play no matter which version I use. And now that the MCC has gotten rid of the horrible gearbox port of Halo CE that Anniversary originally came with, and restored the original game, there's no reason not to at least give this one a chance.

Could it be better? Absolutely. But for what we got, this is still plenty of fun, and I'm happy to play through it again whenever I can!