Halo: The Master Chief Collection [PC]

[DjchunKfunK]

Halo: Reach - Done

Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary - Done

Halo 2: Anniversary - Done

Saying any of those are done is being a bit generous. I appreciate that Microsoft are going to great lengths to completely replicate the Halo MCC console experience on PC.

[Hatredsheart]

Halo: Reach - Done

Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary - Done

Halo 2: Anniversary - Done

Saying any of those are done is being a bit generous. I appreciate that Microsoft are going to great lengths to completely replicate the Halo MCC console experience on PC.

Good point Edited!

[Mantis]

I'll probably pick it up when 3 comes out. I'm looking forward to co-oping the campaigns in order.

[Raid]

I would be up for trying some Halo 3 co-op. I'm not gonna lie, watching that brief trailer did remind me of the excitement I had for Halo 3 when it was first released (remember when I was the forum Halo fanboy? Good times) and how much the game met with my expectations.

[Mantis]

I think those couple of years were an absolute golden age for console releases. I called in sick at college to go to the shop at opening time and spent the entire day playing Halo 3 with my friend.

I liked 2 a lot but it was questionable at times. I recall being absolutely blown away by 3 and how ambitious it was. I hope the campaign stands the test of time.

[Raid]

Yeah, I consider 2 to be the worst of the original trilogy. It wasn't a bad game by any means, but the introduction of dual wielding made for some strange balance choices. You could dual-wield the Needler in 2, meaning you could take down an army very quickly so long as you could find ammo for it, and they wisely made it a two-handed weapon in the sequel.

[Mantis]

Been playing through this on Legendary with a friend in chronological lore order, so we've just finished Reach and are part way into Combat Evolved.

I enjoy Reach a lot, but the feel of the gunplay and the general vibe of the game is so different. It's got a solid story and some neat missions in but it almost feels like a different franchise going back immediately to CE. Grenades are less ridiculous, ammo is scarcer, gravity is significantly more realistic, there's a sprint button. It has the feel of a modern shooter akin more to CoD than Halo.

Combat Evolved is still pure joy to play. Within five minutes we were already having more fun with it, blowing enemies up with the Needler and setting off enormous chain reactions of dropped grenades to trigger ridiculous ragdoll physics on the enemies. Master Chief jumps like he's on the moon when compared with how Noble Six plays. It has that distinct Quake vibe of late 90s/early 2000s. It's not an easy game on Legendary either, the early missions have posed a bigger challenge than the first few on Reach did.

I know that they all have their flaws, the first game has amazing mission design but then a couple of drawn out slogs like The Library and Keyes. But the first three games in this franchise are really the pinnacle of well done story heavy first person shooters, with huge maps and good vehicle combat to boot. 343 Studios just haven't been able to deliver the same consistent quality since they took over, they always manage to get there in bits but ultimately fall short on various elements too, but then I'm not sure it's really possible to take another teams tight artistic vision and have similar runaway success with it.

[Raid]

I think I was a little too hard on Halo CE in the other thread; I went back and restarted the level I'd been stuck on and got through it last night. It was still a little frustrating at times, particularly due to the fairly lazy-feeling quicksaves (where you basically need to redo entire sections because it simply refuses to save mid-encounter), but the sense of satisfaction you get from beating a tough fight came back. I guess my biggest problem was that while I think I finished Halo CE a total of ten times, most of those were in co-op which is far more forgiving.

I don't know if I'll go much further on my own. I've beaten Halo, and am now on Truth and Reconciliation, which I remember being bastard-hard in places.

[Animalmother]

Has anyone played 5 yet? It's a gorgeous looking game but is so fucking dull it's mind numbing. Jumping from one group of characters to the other in a very forgettable story. I may be being a bit harsh but it's just not a good game. 343 do not seem to know what makes a Halo game fun.

[Mantis]

I haven't played it as I never bought an X, though I've seen various clips and caught myself up with the story ready for Infinite. The plot is a good example of how 343 are struggling to really give the franchise a new sense of purpose, I thought it was fairly weak in 4 but it's really poor in 5.

I'd be up for cooping some sessions on CE if you wanted, Raid. It's still a blast of a game to play.

[Raid]

I'd absolutely be up for some co-op. I take it you're playing on PC Mantis?

[Mantis]

I am yeah, I should be around for a session at some point during the week.

[Raid]

I don't currently have any plans this week, though I forget whether it was this week that the D&D was due to restart.

I've got the game downloading on PC now. I do wish you could select which games from the MCC to download; 100gb is a huge chunk of SSD space that I can't quite spare (I can't wait until I can afford a big ol' M.2 drive), so I've had to stick it on my magnetic drive.

[Mantis]

You can select which to download. Go into the settings for the game and select the DLC tab, you can pick which ones from there.

[Raid]

Am I downloading this through the same interface as you? There doesn't appear to be any way of deselecting games in the Windows XBox app (it tells you it's a bundle, but even if you navigate to individual titles in the MCC bundle, it still installs the whole thing if you hit install), and you can't go into the game's internal settings without it installing the game first.