Managed to play through Halo 1 and Halo 2 over the last few weeks. It is amazing looking back how many levels can be simply sprinted through, especially when you try to beat the new par times. Other levels you just gotta fight some classic battles and beat the par score instead. Either way, plenty of achievements for me to unlock!
I installed the MCC if you will months ago but for some reason couldn't get it to run, something about my Microsoft account or unable to connect or some shite. So I left it alone and came back to it in 2021, I must have installed it late 2020 for something to play and obviously left it in disgust. It worked in 2021 anyway, online multiplayer and all.
I started with Halo 1 on Heroic because fuck it. First thing that struck me how true to the original it was. Also all the new features, including like a dozen different control schemes to choose from. The biggest change was the ability to shift between the classic graphics and the new, refined graphics at the touch of a button. While it looked amazing, I simply wasn't used to the new graphics and found it difficult to navigate and shoot the enemy. So I played the whole thing on the old graphics as I have a dozen times before.
Halo 1 is so weird now, huge levels and surprisingly difficult. Perhaps going in cold playing on Heroic after not having played Halo in any form for over a year was a bit much but hey. Last time may have been co-op in Royce's apartment in Dublin in 2019 or 2020. I missed having a co-op buddy to split the kills and the incoming shots but I managed it.
Classic.
Keeping Keyes alive was one of the tougher things to do in Halo 1. After one particular shootout you cam just sprint ahead and keep the marines et al wayyy behind you and clear the way yourself.
Read online that the improved graphics are useful in scenes like this one where it was just too damn dark in the original. I persisted anyway with the classic view as I could never get over the enemy hitboxes and general feel of the refined graphics. Looked great though. One of the best levels of the old Halo.
Managed to finish it anyway. The Library was tough but not too bad, I was reliant on Halo 1 infamously unreliable checkpoints. They seemed to be tied to murdering enemies so I just killed what I could and hoped for a checkpoint completed to pop up.
Halo 1 - still great but even better in co-op. There are still plenty of achievements for me to go back and get, namely Legendary, par times, par scores and some miscellaneous ones. Unlike many of my recent playthroughs, I was just playing for fun and not playing for the achievements alone. I tend to get a bit obsessed with getting them and not playing the game itself and wind up not enjoying the experience.
A series of events. I always liked those first few levels of Halo 2, half of them are movies and like most cut scenes these days that I have seen before I skip the hell out of them.
Outskirts. Also a nice early game level. I immediately went up and grabbed the Blind skull and sure enough there was an achievement for it. I also grabbed the sword up high in the buildings and got one for that too. No achievement for sword charging my way up to the truck though. Shame.
Halo 1 - still great but even better in co-op. There are still plenty of achievements for me to go back and get, namely Legendary, par times, par scores and some miscellaneous ones. Unlike many of my recent playthroughs, I was just playing for fun and not playing for the achievements alone. I tend to get a bit obsessed with getting them and not playing the game itself and wind up not enjoying the experience.
Aww shi here we go again. Halo 2. It also has a remastered graphics option but feck that. More so than Halo 1, Halo 2 had a big impact on me and was probably my fave game from like 2004-2006+, for both the singleplayer, co-op, local multiplayer and of course Xbox Live. The main campaign is way more linear than Halo 1, with less gigantic open levels and more staged fights and linear progression. We enjoyed playing it co-op but multiplayer was where this thing shined. We didn't play too much between ourselves due to the old problem of screen watching but we played the frick out of the Xbox Live wherever we could get it.
Delta Halo. All the Master Chief levels are good. All the Arbiter levels... not so much.
Metropolis 'soccer ball'. I never knew this existed but noticed it as an achievement. I didn't bother getting the Scarab Gun achievement YET because the effort involved but managed to do this one with the help of some skulls.
Halo 2 remains great. I enjoyed playing it more by myself than co-op though co-op is always welcome. To this day there are tons of things to find and areas to explore that I have yet to do so I will always come back to it. Heroic Halo 2 is also very manageable, especially coming off the back of playing Halo 1. One thing is the absolute primacy of the Battle Rifle or BR (and in some levels, the Covenant Carbine). Holy fudge. Extensive no-scope BR shots at Elites and whatnot prepped me somewhat for the online experience. But not that much. More on that in a minute.
Killing the final boss with a Banshee. Just because.
The last time Sarge was badass. If I recall from my Halo 3 playthrough over 10 years ago, he acquires the Idiot Ball and becomes less competent in the final part of the trilogy.
The Brute Plasma Rifle. We hardly knew ye.
Jumping to my death as the Arbiter.
Halo 2 online. I bit the bullet and played an online game for the first time properly in.... years, not sure how many years. I recall Xbox giving a free weekend of Xbox Live wayyy back in like 2016 or 2017 or something and Theo found it on the Xbox and I spent that nigth playing Gears 1 online multiplayer with like 4 Russian and Polish dudes. Not even enough for a full lobby! Anyway:
I SUCKED the first match. It was Ascension, Battle Rifles and I was just awful. Or everyone was really good. Or both. It took me a few minutes into a I think 12 minute game to score a kill and I think it was an assist. Jesus. My enemies rightfully teabagged my corpse I was just woeful. One of my allies smacked me with a rocket launcher in frustration, I think. Thanfully there wa sno voice chat as far as I can tell so far. There is a text chat but almost no one uses it. I was too busy to screen cap actual play but caught a few of the after action reports. Sorry, CARNAGE reports. Ahem.
You can select from both the classic and remastered graphics to play from but after a while I unticked the remastered ones. Less chance of getting a lobby but I've had no issues so far except one or two disconnects and indeed the 8 vs 8 lobbies are completely dead, which is a shame. No Coagulation for me.
I eventually got better as above reports show but it varies. I suck at capture the flag, always kind of did. Very hard to balance offense and defence especially considering the absolute chasm between two types of player online I seem to encounter. Hopeless, AFK, laggy, out of their depth, guests and first time players versus very long in the tooth veterans who know exactly what they are doing. 2006 it is not where there were thousands of players and veterans were a rarity. Its 2021 and there might only be a few hundred people playing (if that) I haven't encountered the same names too many times but enough to tell me the pool of players is very, very small.
Other types are okay, territories, KOTH and Oddball. Didn't play Juggernaut yet but it must be in the Free for All section. Must try that later. As I said above, 8 vs. 8 is totally dead, which is a shame. There is an infection option, so I must try that. Give me Classic Zombies, Tower of Power, Cat and Mouse. How I miss them!
There is also the option of ranked but feck that. May give it a whirl if there is an achievement to go for but otherwise, no. Well, maybe. Not that I'd get very far these days at the rate I'm going.
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So that about does her, wraps it all up. I am currently installing Halo 3 and Reach, both of which I have played before, as well as ODST and Halo 4, which I have very briefly played but not to conclusion. I assume they will bring more multiplayer and of course, achievements. There are 700 to collect in total over all the games and at the time of writing 21st March 2021 I have 79. Here's to many more!
