Anyone who knows me is under no illusions about my thoughts on Halo: I like my least favorite Halo more than 95% of games that exist. And for a long time, I maintained that CE is in my top 3 Halo titles. Having just completed my third playthrough - I feel like I need to complicate this perspective.
CE is often criticized for its repeated interiors that seemingly stretch on forever, the same textures stretched floor to ceiling for room after room, even in the Anniversary remaster. This is doubtlessly archaic but focusing on the texture work is a misdiagnosis of the accurate level design frustration. The checkpoint system is entirely broken and so many levels are too long. Why does Guilty Spark have to open 10 doors in The Library. Why couldn't it have been five? Or three?
The repetitious environments only grate when the arbiter of random chance assign a checkpoint to Chief when he's down to a single bar of health and facing down waves of Covenant that wind through a corridor that, sure, LOOKS like every other corridor, but also locks you within it in this odd checkpoint-induced, stage-padded purgatory. Nearly every level in CE could stand to be a few encounters shorter with checkpoints anchored to a precise set of coordinates.
I found the game longer in the tooth this time than I have in the past and downright frustrating at times. But here’s where things get interesting - although I was less impressed by CE on the whole this time, I became even fonder of its best missions. There is no shortage of effusive praise for The Silent Cartographer but it really does exemplify everything that makes CE a benchmark FPS. The island’s looping structure is a microcosm of the overall adventure, which begins aboard the Pillar of Autumn and ends there, too. You come to care for the fragile Marines who charge up the beachhead alongside Cheif, splintering the Covenenant’s line as you weave between generously large projectile-based gunfire.
Of course there is the small but purpose-built arsenal, each weapon occupying a unique role in the combat sandbox, alongside the Warthog which you can charge across the sand in - a vehicle put to even better use when you’re bouncing across the rolling Pacific Northwest hills of mission II. The gameplay is as simple as it is exquisite. And the tension just continues to ratchet up with the introduction of the Flood, who overwhelm and explode in equally impressive measure. As you begin to double back towards the end of the game, and the Covenant begin to fight the Flood as well as Chief, this sense of heightened chaos and environmental storytelling reaches a new pitch. The man versus army versus army trope complication is a ton of fun, best demonstrated by missions like Keyes.
And I feel like I better appreciated the eccentricies of the narrative this time. Guided by one of the medium’s absolute best scores, music stitches camp to macabre effortlessly, keeping the adventure contiguous despite how often it shifts tone. The Library, for as weak as its level design is, best exemplifies how extremely unique the tone here is. As Chief lays waste to countless Flood, death never more than a moment away, Guilty Spark lazes around the facility, spouting off facts like a college tour guide. This is all before Cortana pops up as the smartest one in the room to reprimand Himbo Chief for being so gullible and poke holes in the weasely facade of 343.
I feel about Combat Evolved the way I feel about Avatar or Star Wars (1977). There is a magic to seeing someone create a brand-new universe in front of your eyes, building on the work of their predecessors to create something informed by the past but totally unique and built for the future. I love the world of Halo. As I journey through my series replay this holiday I will likely find a new home for CE in my ranking, probably just beyond that top three, solely becuase of those aforementioned structural issues. But to begin where I began, just as CE does itself, my least favorite Halo game is still one of my favorite games of all-time. And CE is far from the bottom of my ranking, even after this more mixed replay.
CE is often criticized for its repeated interiors that seemingly stretch on forever, the same textures stretched floor to ceiling for room after room, even in the Anniversary remaster. This is doubtlessly archaic but focusing on the texture work is a misdiagnosis of the accurate level design frustration. The checkpoint system is entirely broken and so many levels are too long. Why does Guilty Spark have to open 10 doors in The Library. Why couldn't it have been five? Or three?
The repetitious environments only grate when the arbiter of random chance assign a checkpoint to Chief when he's down to a single bar of health and facing down waves of Covenant that wind through a corridor that, sure, LOOKS like every other corridor, but also locks you within it in this odd checkpoint-induced, stage-padded purgatory. Nearly every level in CE could stand to be a few encounters shorter with checkpoints anchored to a precise set of coordinates.
I found the game longer in the tooth this time than I have in the past and downright frustrating at times. But here’s where things get interesting - although I was less impressed by CE on the whole this time, I became even fonder of its best missions. There is no shortage of effusive praise for The Silent Cartographer but it really does exemplify everything that makes CE a benchmark FPS. The island’s looping structure is a microcosm of the overall adventure, which begins aboard the Pillar of Autumn and ends there, too. You come to care for the fragile Marines who charge up the beachhead alongside Cheif, splintering the Covenenant’s line as you weave between generously large projectile-based gunfire.
Of course there is the small but purpose-built arsenal, each weapon occupying a unique role in the combat sandbox, alongside the Warthog which you can charge across the sand in - a vehicle put to even better use when you’re bouncing across the rolling Pacific Northwest hills of mission II. The gameplay is as simple as it is exquisite. And the tension just continues to ratchet up with the introduction of the Flood, who overwhelm and explode in equally impressive measure. As you begin to double back towards the end of the game, and the Covenant begin to fight the Flood as well as Chief, this sense of heightened chaos and environmental storytelling reaches a new pitch. The man versus army versus army trope complication is a ton of fun, best demonstrated by missions like Keyes.
And I feel like I better appreciated the eccentricies of the narrative this time. Guided by one of the medium’s absolute best scores, music stitches camp to macabre effortlessly, keeping the adventure contiguous despite how often it shifts tone. The Library, for as weak as its level design is, best exemplifies how extremely unique the tone here is. As Chief lays waste to countless Flood, death never more than a moment away, Guilty Spark lazes around the facility, spouting off facts like a college tour guide. This is all before Cortana pops up as the smartest one in the room to reprimand Himbo Chief for being so gullible and poke holes in the weasely facade of 343.
I feel about Combat Evolved the way I feel about Avatar or Star Wars (1977). There is a magic to seeing someone create a brand-new universe in front of your eyes, building on the work of their predecessors to create something informed by the past but totally unique and built for the future. I love the world of Halo. As I journey through my series replay this holiday I will likely find a new home for CE in my ranking, probably just beyond that top three, solely becuase of those aforementioned structural issues. But to begin where I began, just as CE does itself, my least favorite Halo game is still one of my favorite games of all-time. And CE is far from the bottom of my ranking, even after this more mixed replay.