So I usually never post on these forums anymore (I lurk like a ***** truka tho) but I decided to make a little review on Halo: MCC for those people that are somewhat interested.
The good:
It’s four games for the price of one, now if that is something doesn’t sell you than I dunno what will, I’ve seen plenty of games that have had poor content at it’s launch (Here’s looking at you Assassin’s Creed!) that is only one title and is full priced and was shipped with some pretty game breaking bugs. (I’ll get to the issues with MCC in “The Ugly” section.)
Multiplayer EPIC return
Now Halo: CE was never an online title (If you weren’t a PC gamer when it was released) but the fact that they managed to port over a working console multiplayer with something to be rather happy about, you get to play the game that started a series that forever changed shooters without having your friends to lug over their huge xboxes just to have uneven match (Granted they were still fun as hell)
and even better, the maps that were PC exclusive were also ported over (BTW Death island was easily a FUN map on Halo PC for CTF)
Halo 2: Now this game is the one that revolutionized the multiplayer experience forever, whether you were trying to get your 50 in ranked, trying to get out of maps with your friends in customs, or just playing fun gametypes such as the original zombies (“OMG You died swap teams already”)
This game is easily one of the greatest titles to ever grace a console and being able to play it in it’s full glory in 60 FPS(Outside of PC gaming) is a huge blessing for a Halo fanboy such as myself, oh and the two PC maps were also ported over and play awesomely!
(BTW, if you had mastered the button combos like RRX, BXR, BXB, ect, they ALL work and yes, they DO work online.)
Halo 3: This game, holy crap this game, truth be told out of the first three Halo titles that were released, I never like Halo 3 much at it’s launch, mainly because I was a sucker for the hitscan BR, but I still loved Halo because it was the first Halo title to be released on the 360 and EVERYONE had a copy and being that it was my first actual Halo copy that was mine (Not shared with family members) this game holds a lot of good memories for me, be it playing custom infection gametypes on custom maps or hiding with friends in matchmaking (HLG haters anyone? huehue)
This game is just amazing to have been brought back, and any issues you’ve had with the P2P experience like getting out BR’d or AR’d mid range because they had the better connection should be gone now because of the dedicated servers. (I haven’t had any problems anyways.)
Halo 4: Still Halo 4 with the boosted FPS, unfortunatly there isn’t much I can say about this since it’s still relatively new on the 360, however I quite enjoyed the campaign and the multiplayer wasn’t too bad for what it was, but it just didn’t feel like a real Halo title to me, but if you’re a H4 fan, than you’ll indeed love the boosted FPS and the fact that all maps were released.
The Bad:
Halo CE:
As mentioned previously, Halo CE has pretty poor net coding and didn’t seem to transfer too well to the XBone online, even with dedicated servers you’ll tend to have pretty random bullet registration with almost every gun, projectile weapons such as the Magnum and Sniper seem to also have pretty poor hitbox detection, but that could just be me but I never really had these issues on the original xbox. (But that could just be me)
Now I also LOVE the campaign undated visuals that came with the anniversary edition a few years back, however, playing splitscreen tends to drop the FPS from a smooth 60 FPS to what seems like, even lower than 30, which sorta sucks, granted you can use the button to go back to the classic visuals and play like that, but that sort of defeats the purpose of having the updated graphics in the first place on a next gen console.
Halo 2:
Now I may sound biased here, but I haven’t really found any real problems with Halo 2 Multiplayer, other than the fact that superjumps and such were patched because they were all fixed in the Vista port over and that was the version they ended up using for the Xbone release, all the button combos were also left in so if you were good with them then, you’ll be good with them now, unless of course you play with a different button layout like I do, then good luck relearning.
Campaign, the new updated visuals are pretty amazing to say the least, and I haven’t had any problems with them myself other than when I was on(Outskirts?) and was on top of the level like the old times and kept running into invisible walls and then swap over to classic visual to find out there was actually a wall there.
Now keep in mind, I’m well aware your experiences will probably differ from mine, so keep in mind before posting.
Halo 3:
Now Halo 3 has had it’s quirks at it’s launch, but it’s a good thing they used the last title update with this release, however they use the original maps that were launched on the disc in multiplayer, you know, the ones with the radar jammers and the flare that were removed due to exploits?
Now granted, I never checked to see if that was patched or not but noticed on how I said the “Original” maps?
You know, the ones that also have ZERO patches on them, the ones people would hide on like the ledge on Guardian or under the ramp on The Pit?
Now granted I was one of the people that exploited this stuff when the game originally launched and am well aware of most of the original unpatched hiding spots in matchmaking, but the fact they released the original maps without the updated ones from Halo 3s end, seems to be kind of a poor oversight in my opinion, but who knows, maybe they wanted people to experience the original maps in 60FPS? I don’t know.
Now the co-op campaign from Halo 3 had very poor net coding, and it seems that Halo MCC-Halo 3 has also kept true to that, I’ve been seeing plenty of reports from the original forums (Have yet to experience this myself since I haven’t done online co-op yet) that it “feels” like the original Halo 3 online co-op, you know when you press a button and like 2-3 seconds later the game will register the input depending on how good your connection was to the host.
Now sadly, I was hoping that would have been fixed with this release, but much like Halo CE net-coding it was a pretty poor port over and imo an oversight, hopefully this may get fixed in the future.
Halo 4:
Nothing really to post here, the game had a pretty solid launch and no real problems from my experience from the 360 version to the Xbone version, the maps are solid and no real exploits from my knowledge but some of you may have experienced otherwise, but I’m leaving this section until I manage to play a bit more. (If I actually do)
The Ugly
Halo CE:
Now I mentioned before that Halo CE port over had poor net-coding, but the fact they used the PC port over and brought that onto dedicated servers should mean it shouldn’t be as stupid as it is with hit detection, wither it be melee or bullets.
Now I have first had experience from Halo PC edition and I can honestly say it was less laggy on there on a P2P experience than it is now on a dedicated server experience, I’m not sure what may be causing these random yet unforgiving moments of hit detection, but it’s something that really should be looked into.
Halo 2:
Now I haven’t had an “ugly” moments on Halo 2 classic yet, and I probably won’t unless I run into a whole team of people on a walmart connection that have their toaster of a router having issues connection to the server.
But Halo 2 Anniversary Multiplayer, holy crap, I can’t have ONE 4v4 match without something going wrong, my roommate and I were split screening on a ranked match (our first one ever) and ended up getting split up, that’s right we were on separate teams while one the SAME Xbox, the hell is that?
That REALLY needs to be fixed asap, and don’t get me started when I solo que into H2:A, I have yet to win a single match in ranked because of moments where I’ll just randomly blackscreen and comeback to a respawn counter.
and the fact that you may also start with uneven teams also needs to be addressed.
Halo 3:
The ugly part was pretty much taken care of in “The Bad” section, so I won’t copy pasterino it here, but the only issues I’ve had and KNOW I’ll end up running into is the kids coming back for the HLG experience again, and for me, that won’t even be an issue.
Halo 4:
Much like Halo 3, nothing to report here, anything minor or major was probably said in “The Bad” section, but if you have had personal experience, feel free to share it.
Now that about wraps it up for now, I’m sure I may have missed a few things and I do indeed apologize for the wall of text, but I honestly have extremely high hopes on this game and hope I can join back up on the competitive scene again with H2:A if they ever fix their issues with it, now I may add a “General Good, Bad, Ugly” section that where they all share similar issues like the long que times and such, but I’ll give this until the end of the week when they release the patch and see how many issues I’ve listed above get resolved.