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!
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!