Game:

Halo: The Master Chief Collection (2014)

Category:

Review

Duration: 25:59

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6

This Halo: Master Chief Collection gameplay & review will serve as documentation of my first Halo game ever. I played a couple matches of Halo 2 at a LAN party nearly a decade and a half ago, but other than that only have a lot of friends who are super into the franchise. I am stoked to share my first experience in Halo with you guys for this week's New Release Friday and hope you not only enjoy watching me play through it with an unbiased, fresh prespective, but also get some amount of value out of the Halo: Master Chief Collection gameplay & review. I know some people are skeptical after the rocky beta phases, so I hope this episode of New Release Friday will help all of you make an informed buying decision.

Growing up, I was a Call of Duty kid. I even would make fun of Halo to my friends or claim that it wasn't my style, but that was mostly because I was always a Playstation player growing up and went from PS2 straight to PC. Never having the chance to experience Halo gameplay, I was dismissive of the series and never thought that I should give it a review myself since I didn't have the hardware to do so. Now, with the Halo: Master Chief Collection PC release, I finally get the chance to experience the series in an updated manner but still see what all the buzz was about all those years ago and why there is so much buzz surrounding the Halo: MCC today.

Starting my Halo: Master Chief Collection gameplay & review took a bit of adjusting. There are many gameplay aspects unique to the Halo games that I am not used to. Right off the bat, I needed to adjust my FOV all the way up to 120 because of the way the viewmodel is configured. Even at 120, I sometimes feel claustrophobic because of how intrusive the gun is on screen. Part of the Halo: MCC PC release, was that they made it so you can't crouch while moving - one of my friends informed me that it has always been like that but felt more natural on an analog stick because crouching is move speed restricted. Since this was my first Halo game ever, I figured that through out my review I would find more and more things that were frustrating or weird; but at its core, Halo: Reach is a clean, simple FPS that functions mostly how you would expect as you are making your way through it. I did find steering vehicles with the mouse to be quite odd though.

From a technical standpoint, the Halo: Master Chief Collection port is one of the better ones I have played in recent memory. Performance is smooth, keybinds are customizable, mouse options are plentiful, and Halo: Reach looks decent all things considered. I wish that interactions weren't "Hold E" and I noticed a few small audio and visual glitches, but overall was really impressed with the port. Of course, this being my first Halo game, I figure I should actually review the game itself to a small degree.

So, what were my actual impressions of the game itself? Even though this is just remake of an old game, it seems unfair for me to do a Halo: Master Chief Collection gameplay & review and not actually review the game itself. In short, I can say I have seen the light to a degree. I can't speak for the entire Halo: MCC PC release, because there is still a lot of content to come, but the gameplay was a blast. Bouncing around plinking covenant scum, tossing grenades left and right, switching weapons, bitch smacking Grunts. It all feels so visceral and natural while still giving you a sense of reward when you pull off something sick. Deeper into my review of Halo: Reach I was finding a bit of frustration with the lack of ammo in some weapons, which can leave you in a rough spot after an autosave. I also found it ridiculous that you had to give up your sprint in order to use the other suit modifications available in Halo: Reach. That and a few other small gripes aside, I get it: Halo is just plain good fun.


All in all, I would 100% recommend the Halo: Master Chief Collection PC release. I think that they really pulled together a clean, functional port of a classic game and are curating a lot of VERY high value content at a fair price tag. Not to say that Halo: Reach was perfect in every way. The multiplayer customization unlock system is trash, there are audio abnormalities, visual artifacting in cut scenes, basically NO graphics options at all, and some AI issues here and there. Even in spite of these issues, my Halo: Master Chief Collection gameplay & review concludes with the sentiment that as long as the remainder of content released is of equal or greater quality to Halo: Reach... buy it no matter who you are. This is coming from someone who has no nostalgic attachment to the franchise at all and 12 hrs. prior to recording this had little interest in even buying the Halo: MCC PC release. I am glad that this was my first Halo game and look forward to the rest.


You can expect to see some more Halo around the channel. Might even be fun to do a let's play of the entire series as it comes out. Stick around, fam.

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