Halo: The Master Chief Collection
Publisher: Microsoft Developer: 343 Industries Platform: Xbox One Release: 2014 Players: 1-4 (Campaign), 2-16 (Multiplayer)* Genre: First-Person Shooter Rating: 9.3 \ 10.0: Outstanding
*Player counts vary by each campaign and each multiplayer mode
A scene from the remastered version of the Halo 2 mission Regret.
IMPORTANT NOTE: The aspects of individual games in this compilation will not be thoroughly discussed in this review. Reviews of each game can be found here.
The Halo series has seen a dip in quality ever since 343 Industries became the developer responsible for it. Their original Halo content may not be at the same level of quality as Bungie's work on the franchise, but 343 has done a fantastic job at celebrating the series's history with Halo: The Master Chief Collection.
This compilation includes includes almost all of the content from Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, Halo 2 (which has been remastered), Halo 3, and Halo 4. Halo 3: ODST's campaign is available a piece of $5 DLC, meaning that Halo: Reach is unfortunately the only Halo FPS released as of 2014 not to receive representation in the collection. Each game now runs at 1080p 60 FPS, a framerate and resolution that none of the games had achieved on their original platforms. I have played MCC exclusively on the original model Xbox One, and the framerate remained mostly stable, but I did experience somewhat frequent drops to about 30 FPS when playing split screen or online. This instability never made the game unplayable, but I was noticeable. This issue is most likely not as prominent on the Xbox One S and X models.
The star of the show is Halo 2. This anthology was released on the game's tenth anniversary, and it received remastered graphics and music, CGI cutscenes done by Blur Studios, and new terminals. The upgraded visuals are absolutely stunning. Halo 2: Anniversary is one of the best-looking games I have ever played and undoubtedly the best-looking on the Xbox One. The incredibly well-detailed textures are an important factor in this, but the beautiful lighting and shading, and the vibrant color palette are what truly sell the look. The new cutscenes look so good that they verge on photorealism,. The human characters did have a slight uncanny valley effect, but to deny the fidelity of the cinematics would be unfair. Halo 2's score is a wonderful mix of epic orchestra and intense rock, and it is easily one of my favorite soundtracks to any piece of media. The remastered tracks are slight improvements in most cases, but choir is used to such an extent in several tracks that it sometimes detracts from the overall quality of the music. The new terminals did provide interesting additional context to the events of the game, but I was unable to view some of them because I would receive errors from the Halo Channel app which opens on your Xbox when you interact with them.
As I mentioned earlier, you can download the campaign of Halo 3: ODST for a mere $4.99. While it is quite short compared to the other Halo titles, but it is easily one of my favorites in the franchise and is well worth purchasing. It's a shame that the Firefight mode from ODST was is not available to purchase, as it is one of my favorite horde modes in any shooter and not seeing it represented in what is supposed to be the ultimate Halo experience feels wrong given the mode's popularity.
Several changes have been made which apply to all of the campaigns, but they do not modify gameplay; any mission can be played at any time regardless of whether you have completed the others, and any skulls can be activated even if you have not collected them in each game. As someone who had completed every Halo game prior to purchasing The Master Chief Collection, I appreciated these features, as I was able to experience my favorite moments from the franchise without having to replay each game (which, being a huge Halo fan, I eventually did anyways). In fact, no changes whatsoever have been made to the actual gameplay, and I wish that they had been. The Flood missions in the first three games are infamous low points in the series, and shinier graphics don't make them any less tedious. It would have also been appreciated if tweaks had been made to Halo 2's brutal Legendary difficult which is well known for being outright unfair due to the high number of Jackal snipers who can instantly kill the player. All of the games are still incredibly fun without these changes, and these are simply nitpicks.
For those seeking an experience designed strictly for co-op, all 50 chapters of Halo 4's Spartan Ops mode can be played in any order you wish. This mode is worth experiencing, but its repetition of environments, unnecessarily lengthy chapters and sometimes absurd number of enemies make it weak compared to the collection's other PvE offerings. You can create loadouts that can be used both in this mode and Halo 4's PvP multiplayer, and every perk and weapon is available from the start. Given that some of the most powerful items were unlocked far too early in the progression cycle of the original version of Halo 4, it hardly makes a difference that nothing has to be unlocked here. The large number of armor sets from Halo 3 and 4 are also all immediately wearable, but you are unfortunately unable to swap out individual pieces (if, for example, you want to wear the Hayabusa armor in Halo 3, you must wear every single piece of it, you couldn't also have ODST shoulder pads or the MJOLNIR Mk VI chestplate).
When it comes to offline multiplayer, The Master Chief Collection has enough content to stay enjoyable for years. Every single map from the four games, including DLC, is playable (except for several maps exclusive to Gearbox Software's PC port of Combat Evolved which were ripped from the campaign and were mediocre as result). Additionally, the Forge modes for both Halo 3 and 4 are playable, and a new one has been added for Halo 2 Anniversary. Because of the incredible number of options that are available for creating custom maps and gamemodes, I wish that there was a file browser, something that was present in both Halo 3 and Reach, but the only way to share content is to upload it to your profile where friends can then download it.
When this game first launched, its matchmaking was near-unplayable due to terrible servers. This issue has since been resolved, and new playlists have been added. There are playlists for each of the staple gamemodes such as Slayer and Capture the Flag, and each game has its own ranked and unranked playlist with a variety of gamemodes. The game used to allow a vote between potential maps and modes before the match began, but this has strangely been removed and you are now instantly placed in a match without any choices which slightly disappointed me.
Whether you are a Halo veteran or newcomer, The Master Chief Collection is well worth owning and is easily the definitive way to experience each game it includes. The convenience of having a set of some of the greatest shooter campaigns, multiplayer maps, and content creation tools of all time in one package is well worth the price, and the enhanced visuals are the icing on the cake. Several aspects of the original games have been slightly downgraded, but almost all of my issues with this title are nitpicks that can easily be overlooked.
Ups
Phenomenal replay value
All games looks amazing and mostly run at 60 FPS
Halo 2's remastered soundtrack is mostly improved
All missions, skulls, and armor can be accessed from the start
Controls can be changed for each game
New Forge mode added for Halo 2
Downs
No content from Halo: Reach is included
Occasional framerate drops
Halo Channel app rarely works
Gameplay issues left unchanged
Veto system removed from multiplayer
No file browser for Forge creations
ESRB: M Content: Blood & Gore, Language, and Violence Price: $29.99 (Retail / Digital)
A scene from the remastered version of the Halo 2 mission Regret.
IMPORTANT NOTE: The aspects of individual games in this compilation will not be thoroughly discussed in this review. Reviews of each game can be found here.
The Halo series has seen a dip in quality ever since 343 Industries became the developer responsible for it. Their original Halo content may not be at the same level of quality as Bungie's work on the franchise, but 343 has done a fantastic job at celebrating the series's history with Halo: The Master Chief Collection.
This compilation includes includes almost all of the content from Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, Halo 2 (which has been remastered), Halo 3, and Halo 4. Halo 3: ODST's campaign is available a piece of $5 DLC, meaning that Halo: Reach is unfortunately the only Halo FPS released as of 2014 not to receive representation in the collection. Each game now runs at 1080p 60 FPS, a framerate and resolution that none of the games had achieved on their original platforms. I have played MCC exclusively on the original model Xbox One, and the framerate remained mostly stable, but I did experience somewhat frequent drops to about 30 FPS when playing split screen or online. This instability never made the game unplayable, but I was noticeable. This issue is most likely not as prominent on the Xbox One S and X models.
The star of the show is Halo 2. This anthology was released on the game's tenth anniversary, and it received remastered graphics and music, CGI cutscenes done by Blur Studios, and new terminals. The upgraded visuals are absolutely stunning. Halo 2: Anniversary is one of the best-looking games I have ever played and undoubtedly the best-looking on the Xbox One. The incredibly well-detailed textures are an important factor in this, but the beautiful lighting and shading, and the vibrant color palette are what truly sell the look. The new cutscenes look so good that they verge on photorealism,. The human characters did have a slight uncanny valley effect, but to deny the fidelity of the cinematics would be unfair. Halo 2's score is a wonderful mix of epic orchestra and intense rock, and it is easily one of my favorite soundtracks to any piece of media. The remastered tracks are slight improvements in most cases, but choir is used to such an extent in several tracks that it sometimes detracts from the overall quality of the music. The new terminals did provide interesting additional context to the events of the game, but I was unable to view some of them because I would receive errors from the Halo Channel app which opens on your Xbox when you interact with them.
As I mentioned earlier, you can download the campaign of Halo 3: ODST for a mere $4.99. While it is quite short compared to the other Halo titles, but it is easily one of my favorites in the franchise and is well worth purchasing. It's a shame that the Firefight mode from ODST was is not available to purchase, as it is one of my favorite horde modes in any shooter and not seeing it represented in what is supposed to be the ultimate Halo experience feels wrong given the mode's popularity.
Several changes have been made which apply to all of the campaigns, but they do not modify gameplay; any mission can be played at any time regardless of whether you have completed the others, and any skulls can be activated even if you have not collected them in each game. As someone who had completed every Halo game prior to purchasing The Master Chief Collection, I appreciated these features, as I was able to experience my favorite moments from the franchise without having to replay each game (which, being a huge Halo fan, I eventually did anyways). In fact, no changes whatsoever have been made to the actual gameplay, and I wish that they had been. The Flood missions in the first three games are infamous low points in the series, and shinier graphics don't make them any less tedious. It would have also been appreciated if tweaks had been made to Halo 2's brutal Legendary difficult which is well known for being outright unfair due to the high number of Jackal snipers who can instantly kill the player. All of the games are still incredibly fun without these changes, and these are simply nitpicks.
For those seeking an experience designed strictly for co-op, all 50 chapters of Halo 4's Spartan Ops mode can be played in any order you wish. This mode is worth experiencing, but its repetition of environments, unnecessarily lengthy chapters and sometimes absurd number of enemies make it weak compared to the collection's other PvE offerings. You can create loadouts that can be used both in this mode and Halo 4's PvP multiplayer, and every perk and weapon is available from the start. Given that some of the most powerful items were unlocked far too early in the progression cycle of the original version of Halo 4, it hardly makes a difference that nothing has to be unlocked here. The large number of armor sets from Halo 3 and 4 are also all immediately wearable, but you are unfortunately unable to swap out individual pieces (if, for example, you want to wear the Hayabusa armor in Halo 3, you must wear every single piece of it, you couldn't also have ODST shoulder pads or the MJOLNIR Mk VI chestplate).
When it comes to offline multiplayer, The Master Chief Collection has enough content to stay enjoyable for years. Every single map from the four games, including DLC, is playable (except for several maps exclusive to Gearbox Software's PC port of Combat Evolved which were ripped from the campaign and were mediocre as result). Additionally, the Forge modes for both Halo 3 and 4 are playable, and a new one has been added for Halo 2 Anniversary. Because of the incredible number of options that are available for creating custom maps and gamemodes, I wish that there was a file browser, something that was present in both Halo 3 and Reach, but the only way to share content is to upload it to your profile where friends can then download it.
When this game first launched, its matchmaking was near-unplayable due to terrible servers. This issue has since been resolved, and new playlists have been added. There are playlists for each of the staple gamemodes such as Slayer and Capture the Flag, and each game has its own ranked and unranked playlist with a variety of gamemodes. The game used to allow a vote between potential maps and modes before the match began, but this has strangely been removed and you are now instantly placed in a match without any choices which slightly disappointed me.
Whether you are a Halo veteran or newcomer, The Master Chief Collection is well worth owning and is easily the definitive way to experience each game it includes. The convenience of having a set of some of the greatest shooter campaigns, multiplayer maps, and content creation tools of all time in one package is well worth the price, and the enhanced visuals are the icing on the cake. Several aspects of the original games have been slightly downgraded, but almost all of my issues with this title are nitpicks that can easily be overlooked.
Ups
Phenomenal replay value
All games looks amazing and mostly run at 60 FPS
Halo 2's remastered soundtrack is mostly improved
All missions, skulls, and armor can be accessed from the start
Controls can be changed for each game
New Forge mode added for Halo 2
Downs
No content from Halo: Reach is included
Occasional framerate drops
Halo Channel app rarely works
Gameplay issues left unchanged
Veto system removed from multiplayer
No file browser for Forge creations
ESRB: M Content: Blood & Gore, Language, and Violence Price: $29.99 (Retail / Digital)
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