What I Think Of... Halo: The Master Chief Collection

The game that revolutionized a genre and pushed the Xbox to the front of the console market is back....again. Halo: The Master Chief Collection is out and contains the following:

- Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary
- Halo 2 Anniversary
- Halo 3
- Halo 4
- Halo Nightfall (A live action feature, presumably to add more fuel to the "Make the Halo movie already!" fire
- invite to the Halo 5 Guardians multiplayer beta when released.

That's A LOT of stuff packed on 1 disc for $60.

I assume this collection is for people who may have never played Halo (do they exist?) or the hardcore fans (like me) who want the new Halo 2 and all the multiplayer fun on a single disc. So is this worth getting if you have every Halo game anyway (again, like me) ?

Here is what I think of Halo: The Master Chief Collection.

I will mainly focus on what sets this collection apart from the regular games, again I assume you know what Halo is and have played these games before. If I talked about every game and their stories, this post would be longer than the time it takes to get into a multiplayer match (BAZING!).

Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary is back and looks as good as ever. The main selling point of the original Anniversary edition was the ability to switch between redone visuals and old visuals, the main switch here in the Xbox One version is that you can do it instantly, whereas the original 360 version, the screen would fade to black first. This is not a small change because the ability to do that makes you actually WANT to go back and forth as opposed to taking you out of the action for a bit.

Halo 2 Anniversary is the part that is being pushed as the big reason to buy this collection, and it's easy to see the development team spent A LOT of time making this look great. The cutscenes look spectacular and even though 2 is regarded as the weakest campaign in the series (it is), it is still a lot of fun to go back and play the remastered version.

Halo 3 and Halo 4 are relatively untouched, though I wouldn't be surprised to see anniversary editions of these when they hit that 10-year mark.

The multiplayer is what keeps coming back to the Halo games and why Halo 2 was being played long after the future games were released. Unfortunately, in it's current state, it's broken.

Let's focus on the positives first though: All the maps from the previous games are in here and it is still just as fun to play them now as they did back when they were new. What is also really cool is the fact that the maps are in the original graphical styles. So if you want to play Hang 'Em High from Halo: CE (arguably the best map in the entire series), the graphics are taken straight out of the original Xbox version, and that is insane to me to be able to play original Halo online. The Halo 2 maps (like my favorite, Midship) are the same way and it is a pure nostalgia trip to see these maps like I did in High School/College. Also, the Halo 2 Anniversary maps are 6 redone Halo 2 maps (including fan favorite, Lockout) with some new mechanics. All the maps have some interactive pieces, like broken glass or falling stalactites that can crush enemies. They also all look incredible.

Now the bad: while all of that sounds great, it's next to impossible to actually play it. The Matchmaking issues have been well documented and 343 is pushing out updates to try and resolve the issue, but even at 11AM on the day of this writing (November 12th, a day after launch), I was still having issues finding a game. I'm not going to slam this part much more, since the rest of the internet is doing it for me, but it's worth mentioning. I was able to get a few matches in and remembered that I may be past my Halo multiplayer prime (I was a beast in High School, but kids these days...man). Also kind of a bummer is the lack of a leveling system that was present in games like Halo 4 and Reach. There IS, however, the Halo 2 ranking system which is cool and all, but is only available on the "Team Halo 2 Anniversary" playlist, with the other lists all say "Ranking coming soon". In this day and age of leveling up "Call of Duty" style, it is kind of a bummer that it was taken out of Halo, though you still can unlock emblems and in-game avatars, though you can't unlock armor pieces like you could before, which is a REAL bummer since I love that kind of thing in ANY game.

While on the subject of playlists, I can say I am a little disappointed in the ones that are currently out. You have your basic team playlists and free-for-all playlists which use a smattering of maps from the different games, you also have game-specific playlists, as well as fan favorite SWAT (still holding out for a Grifball playlist), but I guess I wanted a playlist that was a "Here is everything, go!" which switched up game modes and used every map in the game (over 100).

What's more, launch day for this game broke Xbox Live. Other games were not working, even Call of Duty players were complaining (weird, right?) and I was also experiencing a problem where achievements were not popping even though it clearly showed that I did what I needed to do, I still haven't got the achievement for beating 343 Guilty Spark in Halo: CE Anniversary, even though I ran through it 3 times trying to get it to pop. Needless to say, it's been a rough launch. Though updates are being pushed out.

Alright, enough belly-aching, the point is that if you are a Halo fan, you either (A) already own this or (B) are planning on it after your next paycheck. This is a phenomenal value at $60 and will be even better once the multiplayer gets fixed. This is one of my favorite franchises in video game history and any opportunity I can get to relive in, this time with better graphics, 60 frames per second, and all on one disc, I will absolutely take it and anybody with an Xbox One deserves to have this in their collection. These are some of the best games of all time for a reason.