(Played via The Master Chief Collection)

NGL, a massive reason this is a 6 is owed to how big a pain in the ass the penultimate 3 missions (The Library, Two Betrayals and Keyes) were to complete. Far too much of all 3 were just repeated sections, as well as reused in the case of the latter 2, with just hoards of the Flood, which are easily the most annoying enemy in the game.

My one big negative out of the way, this games still pretty fun. I do find the gameplay a bit less varied than Reach, but I’ll excuse it since it was the first of the series. The stories also a lot more engaging then I expected, with the Flood adding a great horror factor despite how annoying they are in gameplay sections. I also enjoyed a lot of the little interactions between Master Chief and Cortana, it helped give Chief a bit of character despite mostly being a static protagonist for most of the proceedings.

Combat Evolved actually reminds me of Mario 64 in a lot of ways, that was another game changer that while still fun could be quite cumbersome to play at times, though I’d happily do 100 coins on Tick Tock Clock over The Library ANY day of the week. Still though this was a good time for the most part, and I’m excited to continue through the main line series in the coming months. 6/10