Just finished the Halo Trilogy for the first time in 15 years...

I too revisited the Halo franchise because of the Steam bundle. I always played the 1st one, only on PC. I wanted to play Halo 2 and even got the fucking dreaded Windows Vista just to play it.

Fast forward to recently, i remembered why i loved it. I really enjoy that in the 1st one, you can press a button and switch back to what it originally looked like. They shouldve done that for the next games.

I ended up loving 2 and 3. I only started 4 and stopped because of the FromSoftware games.

I gotta restart.
 
I challenged myself to beat every Halo game on Legendary before Infinite came out. It was a chore, but I got it done. The only one that really frustrated me was Halo 2. Those goddamn Jackal snipers and the Regret boss fight. I rage quit several times.

3 was my favorite as a kid for some reason, but since replaying all of them.. I’d go with Halo 2 and Reach
 
Madmick said:
Y'all are smoking crack. Nearly every level in Halo 2 is a masterpiece, but "Gravemind" is the greatest level, and also probably the most challenging, in all of Halo.

First things first. There's really two campaigns in a single game. One is the Master Chief's journey, one is the Arbiter's journey. I'll color code those (green for Chief, purple for Arbiter). Meanwhile, within those journeys, except for the first level, "Cairo Station", all levels are really two halves of a same level broken up to keep level lengths reasonable, or to parallelize the dual narrative:
  • (1) Cairo Station
    ---
  • (2) Outskirts
  • (3) Metropolis
    ---
  • (4) The Arbiter
  • (5) The Oracle
    ---
  • (6) Delta Halo
  • (7) Regret
    ---
  • (8) Sacred Icon
  • (9) Quarantine Zone
    ---
  • (10) Gravemind
  • (12) High Charity
    ---
  • (11) Uprising
  • (13) The Great Journey

I get that most don't care for the back half as much as the front half, but I think a lot of gamers over the years detached due to the weakest episode in the game: the "Arbiter"-"Oracle" episode. Yeah, it's a bit of a letdown after that banger 1-2-3 opening. There's also no question Master Chief's journey is greater than the Arbiter's. It's only disappointment is its final level. Every other level is a masterpiece of first person shooting history.

Because, sure, "High Charity" is obnoxious, given the presence of the Flood, but "Quarantine Zone" as the second half of its episode (with "Sacred Icon") has to be the best Flood level in the franchise. And every Flood stage in the game except those in "High Charity" are vastly more enjoyable than in Halo CE or Halo 3 for one simple reason: the Arbiter's invisibility ability. It makes holding forward possible.

"Uprising" is the Arbiter's "Gravemind". Again, and I don't mean to blunt the word's impact by overusing it, but it's a goddamn masterpiece.

Finally, I understand some don't like "The Great Journey" because of vehicle play, but vehicles is part of what makes Halo so great among shooters. For some reason, most don't care for anything but the Warthog. It's why even a lot of Halo hardcores complained about "Long Night of Solace" in Reach. Well, here's some hard truths for those with rose-tinted glasses. The CE banshee is clumsy & boring, the ghost was a pointless pile of shit designed for autists, and the tank is a joke where a single plasma pistol charge from a jackal or grunt counters the most powerful piece of cavalry in the game. Only the Hog is good. The same can't be said for Halo 2's vehicles. They're all fun, challenging, responsive, and balanced.
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I don't know if you've played Halo more than I have. I mean, maybe, but you would have had to play a fucking hell of a lot of Halo for that to be the case.

Anyway, I agree with this 100%. Halo 2 is amazing. It's also my favorite campaign.
 
I was just skimming through the video playthrough of Halo 4. Every goddamn checkpoint is incredible. Unlike no less than Halo 2, the campaign I rate most strongly of all, there's not a weak level, and in fact, there isn't even a weak stage, really. Frankly, one could make a powerful argument it's the best campaign in the whole franchise if it just didn't lack the narrative thrust of the earlier installments (the story is by far at its strongest when it is less developed, at its most mysterious, in Halo: CE). But it also isn't crippled as CE was by the plodding, imbalanced vehicle play, or Hunters that can be downed with a single pistol to the back, for example. And unlike the original trilogy...no Flood. It's glorious.

I'm being a milquetoast acquiesing to dogma mostly steeped in the ignorance of those who have never really played it to rate it as low as I have.
 
Madmick said:
I was just skimming through the video playthrough of Halo 4. Every stage is incredible. Unlike no less than Halo 2, the campaign I rate most strongly of all, there's not a weak level, and in fact, there isn't even a weak stage, really. Frankly, one could make a powerful argument it's the best campaign in the whole franchise if it just didn't lack the narrative thrust of the earlier installments (the story is by far at its strongest when it is less developed, at its most mysterious, in Halo: CE). But it also isn't crippled as CE was by the plodding, imbalanced vehicle play, or Hunters that can be downed with a single pistol to the back, for example. And unlike the original trilogy...no Flood. It's glorious.

I'm being a milquetoast acquiesting to dogma mostly steeped in the ignorance of those who have never really played it to rate it as low as I have.
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What gets me about Halo 3, it’s only flaw, is there aren’t many fights against Elites. Something about their screams as they die, the way they move: blowing them up is more satisfying than blowing up the Brutes. Not by much. But in Halo 2 the Brutes and Elites were very different and required different tactics to deal with, 3 missed that, in spite of how awesome it is.

That’s why I love Reach so much. I played Reach Firefight as the only game I would play for a couple of years.
 
My Spot said:
Download the original PC port of Halo with mods, no input latency with KB/M.
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I loved the PC version of Halo 1. I played the shit out of CE on the Xbox, especially splitscreen and system link. My buddies and I were hardcore competitive with that and Fusion Frenzy (original).

The physics in CE made it so damn fun, you could pull off some crazy stunts. Coupled with the PC version, and the bigger maps/player count, business really picked up. I'm never a big CTF fan, but in Halo CE with enough people it was high octane madness, especially racing to your base in a warthog under pursuit.

I played them all, save for H5. CE is by far my favourite still.

My rank, prior to Infinite (so mixed on that).

Halo CE
Halo 3
Halo 2
Halo Reach
Halo 4
Halo ODST
 
GearSolidMetal said:
Probably going to play Reach sometime in the near future
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I'm surprised I made this thread almost 2 years ago, and that it took me so long to play Reach.

Reach seems to have been forgotten amongst the Halo Community because I rarely ever see it mentioned. I remember playing it once after it came out, had a blast, but I never replayed through it and I can't remember specific moments about it.

Anyway, I just finished playing through it again, and let me start off with the negatives.

*The story is extremely poor, although it seems it should have been great with the potential it had with a squad of half a dozen spartans in the final days of Reach. Going through the levels I can't recall exactly what the purpose is... why I'm going from point A to B and killing everything inbetween. The cutscenes do a very poor job at communicating the stakes & conflict. These are supposed to be the final days of Reach but it doesn't seem like it within the game, it may 'tell' poorly but it definitely does not 'show.'
*The Spartans.... um... who are they? I didn't know them at all, or care about any of them apart from Kat, so when they die in the cutscenes I felt absolutely nothing at all. Another example of piss-poor character development.
*Unlike Halo 1&3, which have amazing pacing leading up to amazing finales... there's not much pacing leading up to a very poor finale that made me wonder 'Is this about to end?' and then it ends.
*It feels shorter than the other Halo games by Bungi. I played through it all in two sittings, which may be wrong.

Now given those massive flaws you'd probably guess I have a very poor opinion of the overall game. But here are the positives.

*There are no 'bad' levels. Even in the great Halo games there's levels that are a slog to get through at best, a royal pain in the ass at worst. 'The Library' in Halo1 comes to mind. They make you second guess playing through the campaigns on Legendary because you know they would be agonizingly annoying. But in Reach all of the levels are great and fun to play through. The level design is great and feels like what Bungi wishes they could fit in their previous games but didn't have the time.
*The acessories options, to have sprint, optical camouflage, a decoy, or another layer of armor was a great addition. The decoy-hologram definitely was the most useful.
*NO FLOOD. I don't know how popular or unpopular of an opinion this is, but the flood was fun for a bit in Halo1 and became increasingly agrovating. In Halo2 they were the worst, but in Halo3 they were 'improved' but still not fun. Having to fight exclusively against the Covenant was a relief.
*The enemy variety. Since there was no flood enemies, Bungi gave us increased variation of Elites & Brutes, and they're always fun to fight.

So, my rankings for the Halo games are...
*3
*1 (They're practically interchangable)
*Reach
*2
 
Which one is kinda like visually dark and dingy and you start off in a city, i think in Africa, I hate that one
 
Good for their time but in retrospect it's super repetitive with the same enemies showing up over and over again. Multiplayer was a blast though. Much prefer this to CoD.
 
blaseblase said:
Good for their time but in retrospect it's super repetitive with the same enemies showing up over and over again. Multiplayer was a blast though. Much prefer this to CoD.
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I'd say the better Halo games - namely 1, 3, & Reach - are as good if not better than the majority of modern FPS games.

And playing them on Series X or PC at modern resolutions & framerates show they've aged like fine wine.

I'd agree The Flood gets 'super repeatitive' across the three main games, and the brutes in Halo 2. But the creative & varied level design does a great job at keeping the covenant enemies fresh.
 
blaseblase said:
Good for their time but in retrospect it's super repetitive with the same enemies showing up over and over again. Multiplayer was a blast though. Much prefer this to CoD.
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LOL, there are few games in history that have held up as well. Still masterpieces. Not repetitive at all.
Pliny Pete said:
Which one is kinda like visually dark and dingy and you start off in a city, i think in Africa, I hate that one
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That's ODST. Easily the least popular game in the franchise.
 
blaseblase said:
Good for their time but in retrospect it's super repetitive with the same enemies showing up over and over again. Multiplayer was a blast though. Much prefer this to CoD.
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Felt the same.

We all played a TON of the first 3 Halos when they were released. We were all just Xbox players, so that was what you played if you only owned those systems, as no other FPS compared. Tried going back and playing coop with some friends, and I was bored after a short time. Maybe it is just me, but I couldn’t go back home. At least campaign wise. The MP on the collection was still pretty darn fun though.
 
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ObsoleteSoul said:
Felt the same.

We all played a TON of the first 3 Halos when they were released. We were all just Xbox players, so that was what you played if you only owned those systems, as no other FPS compared. Tried going back and playing coop with some friends, and I was bored after a short time. Maybe it is just me, but I couldn’t go back home. At least campaign wise. The MP on the collection was still pretty darn fun though.
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And what modern campaigns, pray tell, are less "repetitive" with enemies? Give us all several examples of single player first person shooter campaigns from the last 10 years that are superior, and make Halo 2 or Halo 3 seem stale in comparison?

Can either of you name any?
 
I had a good time with Halo 1 and Halo 2. To this day, I never played Halo 3.

If I ever had online matches with any of them, 55% of my time would go to Halo 1 and 45% of my time would go to Halo 2.
 
Madmick said:
And what modern campaigns, pray tell, are less "repetitive" with enemies? Give us all several examples of single player first person shooter campaigns from the last 10 years that are superior, and make Halo 2 or Halo 3 seem stale in comparison?

Can either of you name any?
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Can’t remember the names of the levels. I think it’s level 6 ot 7. The library maybe? It has been a minute, and relying on feelz. It is the one with flood and those flying ray gun wielding sentries where you get the ray gun type weapons from them. Its flood and them, through fairly mundane forerunner curved hallway after curved hallway. Just bored me. What can ya do?

Titanfall 2 single player was superior to me
 
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ObsoleteSoul said:
Can’t remember the names of the levels. I think it’s level 6 ot 7. The library maybe? It has been a minute, and relying on feelz. It is the one with flood and those flying ray gun wielding sentries where you get the ray gun type weapons from them. Its flood and them, through fairly mundane forerunner curved hallway after curved hallway. Just bored me. What can ya do?

Titanfall 2 single player was superior to me
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That's Halo CE. Yeah, as I wrote above, it's the only one that feels dated by modern standards-- just slow and clunky. But that's understandable. It came out in 2001. Every FPS from that time or earlier feels dated including those that were on PC. Halo 2 and Halo 3 are a completely different story.

Also, btw, if you queue the MP with 2 you're more likely to get put into Halo 2A which is the updated MP with modern shot registration and some graphical overhaul.
 
Madmick said:
That's Halo CE. Yeah, as I wrote above, it's the only one that feels dated by modern standards-- just slow and clunky. But that's understandable. It came out in 2001. Every FPS from that time or earlier feels dated including those that were on PC. Halo 2 and Halo 3 are a completely different story.

Also, btw, if you queue the MP with 2 you're more likely to get put into Halo 2A which is the updated MP with modern shot registration and some graphical overhaul.
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Unfortunately, 1 was the one we played Coop in again… MP was still fun, with those overpowered pistols. That was still a blast. I thought he was posting about halo 1, so that’s my bad

I felt unreal tournament games didn’t feel as slow, but that’s a vague memory. Haven’t tried any of those in ofer 15 years or so, so maybe they were, and I got rose-tinted glasses on. Just remember trying one or so at a friend’s place, and was surprised at how different and fast it was to me, coming from only console FPSs at the time.
 
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