Original Halo: CE came out in 2001. It was never my game, as I didn't have Xbox, but I do recall playing it once. I can't say I cared much about it, but the console audiences ate it up, hook, line and sinker. For many, it was the long-awaited proof that 1st person shooters weren't just for mouse and keyboard. When I tried it, I thought it was slow and kind of dull in comparison to the highspeed action PC FPS' offered. Master Chief himself moves with a brisk walking speed, but there's no running, just one standard speed. So, after my initial try, I just dropped it and never looked back. Until now after Halo got a new shiny coat of paint in a form of a remaster.
On their way to escaping the Covenant, a military ship Pillar of Autumn jumps into an uncharted part of space in order to keep the Covenant hordes out from Earth. To their surprise, they find a huge artificial ring structure revolving around a gas giant. They don't manage to admire the view for too long as the enemy is behind them, so the only thing left to do is to wake up Master Chief, a supersoldier you get to play as, from his cryogenic slumber.
After a short fight against the invading Covenant troops, Pillar of Autumn crasher on the ringworld known as Halo. While exploring and fighting against the Covenant, captain Keyes reveals that the Covenant believes Halo to be a superweapon. They have to stop the enemy from using it at any cost. Further, into the story, it is revealed, that Halo is actually a prison for parasitic organisms capable of taking over all lifeforms. The weapon part of Halo actually destroys all biological life from the universe, killing the biomass feeding parasites by starving them to death.
So that's the story in a nutshell. In the end, Master Chief and the artificial intelligence Cortana need to find a way of destroying Halo before it decimates the whole universe in an exaggerated display of wiping out a parasitic Flood.
Unlike with my first play attempt of Halo all those years ago, I decided to muster through the Anniversary edition. I still didn't find it anything special. Perhaps, had I been a console gamer, I'd like it more. I don't know, really. Halo is a decent game. It controls well and the setting is interesting. The gunplay works despite the arsenal being a bit underwhelming. You can carry only two guns at once, but then again, even with the ability to use the enemy guns, there just aren't that many weapons on the offer and all of them are somewhat bland. My personal favourite ended up being an enemy plasma pistol. It's efficient and the dead enemies drop them quite often, so it's always easy to swap a depleted pistol to a full one.
My biggest beef is the movement speed, really. Master Chief moves at a steady pace, but there's no running, which is something I was back then, and now, accustomed to using quite often. The slow movement speed was probably done to favour playing Halo with a gamepad and this being as faithful remaster as possible, gameplaywise, there's no running on Anniversary edition either. Even the vehicles you get to use move somewhat slowly.
The second issue I have are the enemies. I just don't find any of the Covenant soldiers that interesting. The basic enemy is the small grunts, who can run away cowardly, flailing their arms in the air before they regroup for an attack. There's a couple of variations of bigger soldiers, who are more aggressive and then there are the behemoths, who can even block your shots. In the latter half of the game, after the parasitic Flood is released, you get parasite controlled enemies, who attack everyone, humans and the Covenant alike. Finally, there are the Halo defence system drones, who lasers the enemies as they see fit.
More or less from the point where you enter the Halo control room, the game turns into more of a corridor shooter, where you dispatch swarms of enemies. It's mostly run and gun style of gameplay, where you need to push through to the end. There's no need to kill everyone, just survive long enough till the end. And here's also where the game finally falls apart, the final levels being the most uninteresting on the offer.
Graphically, the Anniversary edition looks pretty good. You can swap between the original graphics and the remastered graphics on the fly, and the difference is pretty astonishing. Though I do have to admit, that the original graphics do look surprisingly good, despite lower polycount and low-resolution textures. There doesn't seem to be any gameplay differences between the two modes, so I can't say if it has been tuned towards modern sensibilities, or if this is how Halo originally was.
Now that I've finally completed Halo, I have no interest in playing it ever again. I'm kind of glad that I've played through once, it is an important title after all, at least as far as console FPS' go, but that's really it as far I'm concerned.
Anyways, Halo: The Master Chief Collection is a good way of playing Halo now. It comes with a remastered version of all the Halo games, so it's not a bad buy for those interested. Especially bought from a sale, it should give some good value for money. The Master Chief Collection can be bought from Steam and Microsoft's Xbox store, where it's also available through the game pass.
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