Fucking amazing video. Great writing, great analysis, great editing. The way you talked about the context of the games release as well as how the mechanics work together was brilliant. Your love and respect for the series shows through the video but you're definitely not blinded by it. Seriously, this is some good shit.
You definitely nailed it about the control scheme: "Many games emulated the control scheme of the successful Goldeneye, not understanding that it was only made that way because of the limitations of the controller" If you weren't around for that time, in order to truly understand why Halo made every gamer who played it want to drop their other console FPS games, you need to understand the control schema of games at the time. Your left stick controlled turning left/right and moving forward and backward. Strafing and looking up/down were either button presses with your right hand, or nonexistant. Imagine that for a moment: you cannot step sideways. In order to move sideways, you have to turn away from your opponent, thus you cannot dodge and shoot at the same time. Maybe sometimes you CAN step sideways, but you cannot melee, reload, or throw objects at the same time because your fingers are tied up. Or, imagine that your enemy is at the top of a staircase or ramp. You play a game of chicken, dodging back and forth and nosing your way up the ramp to try to shoot their foot before they shoot your head because *neither one of you can aim high or low*. Then you play the Halo control scheme (which is now the scheme of every FPS game in the world) and you are able to walk sideways, reload, and shoot up at an angle for the FIRST time. Yeah, that's why it owned the entire industry. The control scheme that an elementary schooler could use made this the only FPS game that was even close to accessible for casual gamers.
That's pretty interesting, I had no idea. But doesn't this reasoning become obsolete over time in regards to how good the game is today? It made great innovations that are now widely used, but now that every game uses this standard, is HaloCE really worth playing in 2020 for its controls?
@@0sac Well, obviously any useful innovation tends to become norm in due time. So no, it's not worth playing for it's controls but because it's a great game with controls just being what you'd expect by now.
Osac that’s up to you to decide. For me the game is solid and I can appreciate its impact from the time of its release, but now its repetitive level design and lack of variety make it hard to come back to for me.
There is literally maybe one or two control schemes for Goldeneye that fix it...but they actually involve something still wonky like using the left and middle throngs of the controller with the D-pad as if it were a WASD, or the dual controller setup on the N64 which is still a tad awkward and you gotta switch the controller order to get it to be closest to a non-southpaw-dual-stick non-legacy-movement control setup. I was lucky to find out such a break through via me being willing to just dig around in the game's menus for a different, better solution and online several months after I got into the original Goldeneye for the first time around 2018, much as I enjoyed it's masochistic, old-school jank; who knows if work arounds like that are even doable with other N64 FPS', or other retro console ones, for that matter. But Halo? No problem, no worries, none of those horrors to weigh you down. All the criticisms y'all and Ray brought up are super legit; for me I still find the game good on several recent playthroughs in the past couple weeks, even on the original version, for having a decent, now-timeless core gameplay loop, and being aesthetically pleasing in so many ways, not just the atmospheric, enthralling music coupled with sound design but also the colorful, imaginative visuals, too.
My second favorite game of all time, even challenging Halo 3. I love CE, it has aged like a wine. Still beautiful graphics, timeless gameplay and in my opinion really clever level design. You back track the same maps yes, but they feel completely different because of the setting. Second time it's night time or you're fighting the Flood also instead just Covenant. But multiplayer is where CE really shines. I've played it almost 20 years and I still play it almost everyday. I guess it's at least 20 more years to come!
Yep, if I recall correctly, the exposed worms at the waist take headshot damage, so a Pistol being a 1 hit kill to the head of an unshielded enemy causes the Hunter to fall very easy when playing Matador. Though seeing as a Grunt can be headshotted with the Assault Rifle I cannot be sure if what I came to learn is true.
Hunters in Halo 1 are super pathetic. Their orange skin registers as their head in the game files, so any headshot-capable weapon (pistol, sniper rifle) will oneshot them. Additionally, their armor (not the gray shield, the actual blue armor) isn't invulnerable to gunfire, it just reduces the damage by about 2/3. You could kill a Hunter just by spamming AR bullets at its torso. Hunters in Halo 1 can be killed with melee attacks, a surprisingly viable strategy because they are too big and awkward to avoid the attacks, and they can't hit you when you're behind them. Like every other enemy in Halo 1, Hunters will instantly die if you touch them with a moving vehicle. For the icing on the cake, their fuel rod gun is positioned so that if you stand completely still, they are incapable of ever hitting you, because the blast will fly right by your side. Watch out though, because the projectile might hit the ground behind you and kill you via splash damage.
@Hatwox, Nope: In Legendary, a pistol will kill in one shot any time you hit exposed orange. I've been playing in Lengendary for the past 15 years, and I count on it. And BTW, it takes exactly 13 melees, start to finish, to take a Hunter down in Legendary.
True but some stories still intrigue me with they're twist like in Metal Gear, Final Fantasy 6 and Knights of the old Republic. I think its because the flood are in multiple games now.
Lol. This guy the surprise effect is gone. After the first time. Seems like this guy on this vid wants the feel the same thing every time. Game was and still awesome to play.
What I hate most about Anniversary is how the updated textured cutscenes had so much personality removed: My favorite parts being during the opening with Keyes looking back towards Cortana's stand at the helm as well as him closing his eyes while she relays the information, the close up squint he does with the "Warm welcome." gave so much. Cortana's time and movements before being pulled felt much less life-like and took away from that grand feeling. The other thing in particular is when Chief boarded the lifeboat. I recall so well how amazingly powerful and loud the music was during that scene. They killed it so hard when they sucked the volume so much I almost couldn't even feel it.
Lupirio I love the Anniversary, but it does not beat the original, and the personality notion is one of them. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the Anniversary version had the characters motion captured, as opposed to the superb hand animation that Bungie was great at. Sometimes, motion capture just can't exactly "capture" (pun intended) subtle expressions like that (although Halo 4 did a great job with how it handled it, like with Cortana's facial range). Its another reason Pixar never motion captures- their skill in hand animation gives them more flexibility with that kind of stuff.
Did anyone else use the plasma rifle to shoot the arms off the flood and create a little friend that would follow you throughout the stage? Or on 343 Guilty Spark at the part where you see a few marines jump down followed by a lot of flood and then constantly reload the checkpoint to save as many as you can? I know I did. I loved those damn marines.
The explanation for Cortana's ambiguity is quite simple and caught me by surprise when you pin pointed it as a flaw in the story; information overload. To be more specific, She may talk and think like a human, but ultimately she is a program with processes. If the file she accessed with information regarding the flood had flooded (pun not intended) her data analysis, her communication processes would be hampered. Aka drain power from one thing to support another with higher priority (not exactly like that but that's the gist). All of that coupled with the fact that Cortana most likely never seen the word "flood" until after Chief was gone and she started sifting through the information makes the plot believable. It's like accessing restricted files and instead of seeing the actual threat that the files pertained to all you get are red lights and warning signs up the arse. Obviously something is dangerous, what that is... who knows? Given those circumstances, what more would you want from Cortana? For her to magically say "Chief be careful, there seems to be an unknown specimen known as the 'flood' which you should avoid at all costs" would poke more holes in the story than your gripe with the original ambiguity that Cortana portrayed. In fact, it wouldn't make sense at all. How did she get access to that information in such a short amount of time? Would such a huge secret not be protected by the covenent? Why does the system not recognize Cortana as an intruder when accessing that information and try to terminate her? I don't see the problem with Cortana's ambiguity. Like you said, it works well on paper for story telling, however, it works doubly so for the setting they created. Cortana is an outside A.I. program accessing the enemies archives. She runs into warning signs and gets her processors flooded for being an intruder resulting in her personality profile to be reduced to minimum efficiency. With her "mind" (processors) racing a thousand times faster than the chief, to Cortana, it seems like the Chief has been standing there for an eternity so she gives only the most crucial information out when she can. Find Keys, stop him. Everything else that comes out supports those 4 words in order to expedite Chief's mission. See, simple.
Harry Forman You are welcome. I find it more interesting to read underrated comments that have little to no likes, but something intriguing to say over an overated comment with over 150+ likes, but spouts off some cringey/boring irrelevant joke.
Very good explanation of Cortana's behavior. I always thought that the objective was too pressing to explain every detail to the Master Chief. So she only gave the relevant info to him.
I don’t think the covenant were really embedded in that architecture, it was just old forerunner systems that the covenant were still trying to figure out how to use, wasn’t it? I wouldn’t say it makes less sense for Cortana to have discovered the extent of the threat that quickly. Regardless your explanation for her behavior makes sense. I recall her reasoning for not pairing back up with the chief and explaining was so she could monitor something or dig deeper into the system- either way it serves the plot.
I just finished watching this entire series of videos. This is one of the most enjoyable things I've EVER seen on RU-vid related to gaming. Informative, entertaining and well made. +1 for you.
I was an avid Halo CE PC player for a number of years, and I can say that some of the Gearbox BTB maps were the best in the game. They were usually the most popular on servers, so clearly the general community agreed too. Of course everyone's entitled to their opinion, but I was very surprised you said they were outright terrible. The maps had great variation and scale. The only one which I would say was poorly designed was Death Island due to the base teleporters to the top of the map which separated players too much while other players were lost within the nooks and crannies of the bottom level of the map.
I played CE on PC before I had an Xbox account, from what I recall, the overwhelming majority of servers were Blood Gulch, with only a handful using Gearbox's additions. Replaying them in MCC for this video really reminded me how poor they were in design, with the only exception being Timberland (which was later remade in Halo Reach). Maps are very subjective though, and while I try to make an educated argument for my opinions, they are just that, opinions.
[TheJedi]LetsImprove_ Halo Trial is what got me into Halo in the first place. Damn that was one of the best executed demos I've ever played, alongside Bioshock.
Blood Gulch, Death Island, Battle Creek and Sidewinder were my favorite maps. Gephyrophobia and I had a love hate relationship. Now that I think about it, Halo 1 was the only Halo game that I would play CTF on.. probably due to the massive maps
Halo CE will always have a special place in my heart, being unable to afford the full game I played the Demo. A LOT. I learned how to mod that game, I ended up changing skins, game mechanics, actor actions and etc.. so many years on that.
Could u do one for nier automata? Its one of my fav single player games (same with halo) but most of the reviews are quite biased and I would like a more neutral view of it
100% agree, the flood keep on your toes. It's probably froming it only on legendary. But damn the flood are amazing ai to fight against on legendary. You are legit terrified of rocket flood. Crazy bastards will destroy their own allies fire so recklessly.
No, they are a skinner box feature. They FEEL fun to fight because they explode frequently and in exciting ways. They die much more easily than Covenant soldiers, and it FEELS good.
No they're fun because you're constantly under pressure. Yes they're simple in their functionning, but the constant attacks coming from both distance + close quarters combined with their ability to come back to life make the player feels constantly on the verge of losing control of the fight.
The first level of Halo: CE's campaign is my favorite game level of all time. And it's even better when playing co-op. A lone ship is surrounded by the enemy and death is knocking at the door, but the captain is unfazed and simply tells Cortana to "give our old friends a warm welcome." Then the words "unseal the hushed casket" appear on a tech's screen and he gasps in awe as he gets to awaken humanity's greatest weapon, YOU, the player.
The control room bit. I think it is explained if you consider the wealth of information she is receiving. I always saw that scene as she struggling to keep up with the multiple layers of information from both the covenant battlenet and Halo's systems. She just says stuff to the Chief as she goes, and that's how I always viewed it, and thought it was brilliant. She felt stressed, and the feeling was transparent. Another thing that is quite amusing is on two betrayals how she knows who 343 Guilty Spark is, aknowledges him right away, and 343 is like "Wot? A Construct?" So you can only imagine the amount of processing power she underwent when she was placed in the control room on the first place. Chief's reaction to this, if he understood how AI's work, would be logical. If she is acting so distressed, it means shit was going down, and something that scared the Covenant was a serious deal. Get Captain Keyes, and wait for someone else to get Cortana. Or let her be in the Control Room, hidden from the Covenant, while he goes to resque Keyes.
Alexandre Batalha I’m surprised he couldn’t figure that out for himself. I thought he was intelligent enough to come to a similar conclusion but I guess not.
I would have read the scene so much better, if they made sure cortana said the lines "the knowledge so much so fast" all stressed and overwhelmed. The way she delivers it here just sounds happy and excited which confuses the scene
Am I the only one who think that the unsc weapons are way too underpowered compared to the covenant ones? for something like 500 years in the future that is nothing.
Cortana has a emotional connection to Keys as he was Halsey's love interest. That's why I believe she yells at Chief to go get him before explaining. Technically what I'm saying is...she's in love with Keys although I do not fully understand the 'science' if you will, behind it.
Winston Poptart In regard to Chief I would say she sees him like her own Son, given that Halsey basically oversaw him growing up during his training. Same could be said for how Halsey always appears to deeply care for Chief when he is mentioned to her.
this is all assuming that these storylines were thought out in advance. they weren't. the reason Johnson doesn't get off the ring and is in fact seen dying on it but then shows up in H2 is because they didn't know that there was going to be a sequel.
Nothing even remotely like that is ever established, even in the expanded universe. Contriving excuses for what's clearly just sloppy writing is neither useful nor needed.
WHY DO YOU NOT HAVE MORE SUBS THIS IS THE BEST ANALYSIS ON HALO I HAVE EVER COME ACROSS AND THAT IS SAYING A LOT CONSIDERIMG HOW MUCH I'VE SEARCHED GOD BLESS YOUR SOUL HOLY FUCK
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR MAKING THESE I JUST MARATHONED YOUR REVIEWS OF 1 2 AND 3 AND I CANNOT EXPRESS JUST HOW INCREDIBLE THESE ARE SO THA K YOU SO MUCH AAAAAAAAAAA
wow. way to dismiss someone's opinion without knowing anything about him. Well, I'm going to dismiss YOUR opinion by saying you have nostalgia goggles on.
yea, what he said about it only being effective because he was young. when i came across that part in the game playing with my step dad, both him and his friend who was in the room both had a reaction to the flood reveal and of course i did
Agreed, I picked up the game early 2018 after being nostalgic over playing it at a friends house around 2004-2005 and even then the flood reveal was still amazing
As for the flood reveal, I dont think that it had anything about you being 12, but rather that you had already experienced the twist and became desensitized to it. It's like that with any game with a twist if you play it enough- theres some games where the twist could potentially hit you just as hard as the first time- but the majority of the time, the impact isn't as strong as it was if you play it enough times. Regardless though, this is a very good review of Halo CE! I loved it to bits. Good presentation and points. This is a bit of an old video, but tons of props to you for it. Onto the Halo 2 review! ^^
It is absolutely criminal this video does not have more views. I enjoyed every minute of this video, and you have *definitely* earned yourself a subscriber. I'm going to share my opinion as well. Looking back on Halo: CE's story, you're definitely right that it's probably average at best, but I think the atmosphere more then makes up for it, and I'm not just talking about the camera-angles and pacing. Halo: CE had a certain level of mysteriousness to it that I think that the sequels completely dropped. Halo: CE had a story that revealed just enough to give the world depth, but left enough unknown to make everything interesting. I love the expanded universe, and I'm ultimately glad that the Halo series expanded it's plot, but at the same time, I kind of miss the days where not every facet of the Halo universe had been revealed. Every race in Halo: CE had it's own feel and personality, and every faction had it's own distinct aesthetics. The UNSC had a plain, and familiar sci-fi look to them, whereas the Covenant had bright bold colors, and weird geometry. The ancient race of the Forunners had an art design that looked both highly advanced, and ancient; both simple, and impossibly complex. Whereas Halo 2 and 3 had a bright, almost light-hearted color scheme, the original was dark and gritty. Basically what I'm getting at, is that the original Halo made you *feel* like you were on an ancient ring-world battling an unstoppable alien race. I have never had a FPS game before, or since, encapsulate me in such wonder and excitement like the original Halo did. Even though I love the Halo sequels too, Half-Life 1 and 2 are probably the only FPS games that I've ever played that rival Halo:CE's atmosphere, and in fact, the atmosphere alone makes it my favorite game in the series.
Thanks! I'd love to hear your thoughts on the other entries to. CE certainly has that air of mystery that while lost today due to the size of its universe, at the time, wasn't seen in console shooters. By the way, if you love atmosphere, I just completed SOMA yesterday, one of the best games I've played in a while.
I've been interested in SOMA for awhile, as I really liked Amnesia, so I'm glad Frictional Games managed to create a great atmosphere again. I guess I'll share my thoughts on Halo 2 and 3 as well. Halo 2 was dampened by over-ambition I think. You know how the theme of Halo 2 is literally just the same theme as Halo 1, but cranked up to 11 with a badass guitar solo in the backround? That theme sums up the design philosophy that Bungie had for Halo 2; Halo CE, but badass. I think Halo 2 had mixed results in this area. On the one hand, it created some fantastic setpieces, like the High Charity civil-war, but on the other hand, it led to some pretty obnoxious story moments, and boss fights (like the ones you mentioned). I honestly think the only reason people even enjoy these moments is because of how good the soundtrack highlighting them is. The story of Halo 2 is better then the story of Halo: CE in my opinion. Some people dislike the Arbiter plotline, but it's actually my favorite part of the story, and the two perspective gimmick is used pretty well overall. I like how events that happen in one perspective will actually have an effect on the events of the other. Such as when Chief killed the prophet of Regret, and that lead to the Covenant civil-war that affects the Arbiter's missions. I do think that having more missions could've really fleshed this out allot more though. Another thing I like, is how it made the Elites somewhat sympathetic over the course of the story by showing how a mixture of corrupt politics and religious misguidance led to the Human-Covenant war. The cliff-hanger ending is abysmal though. The gameplay of Halo 2 was the biggest improvement in my opinion. The ability to duel-wield added quite a bit of depth to gun fights, even if a few of the combinations weren't that great. The dual-wielding was also a bit of a negative too though. In Halo: CE, the plasma weapons were basically power-house weapons that quickly dealt out allot of damage, but over-heated really quickly, and had a slow rate of fire combined with being inaccurate to compensate. Due to the ability of being able to carry two plasma weapons at once in Halo 2, they had to severely decrease their power. In order for the plasma weapons in Halo 2 to be effective at all, you *need* to duel wield them. So it added depth, while at the same time taking some away. Halo 3 is a mixed bag for me. I'm in total agreement with you that Halo 3 was definitely not the pinnacle of the series. Halo 3 was both an improvement, and a downgrade. I'm glad it went back to the more dynamic gameplay of Halo: CE, instead of going back to the scripted setpieces like Halo 2. The best example of this would be the differences between the Scarab fight in Halo 2, vs Halo 3. In Halo 2, the Scarab fight failed because there was nothing that wasn't scripted about it. Where it went, how you got on it, and how you disabled it, was all entirely scripted. In Halo 3, the Scarab is treated like just another obstacle, instead of being a huge climactic fight. In Halo 2, the choices you had with the Scarab boiled down to what weapons you chose to jump in with. In Halo 3, you can fly a Hornet onto it, or you can shoot it's legs to get it to fall down for a short period of time, and then board it that way. You can pick-off the enemies on it before you jump in, or you can drop in guns-blazing. A few sections even have multiple Scarab's and let you choose which one to tackle first. The more dynamic gameplay of Halo 3 is what makes it the most fun Halo game to co-op in my opinion. It's dynamic gameplay surpasses that of even Halo:CE. The gunplay of Halo 3 might be my least favorite in the series though. I think a mixture of the slower-pace, weak guns sounds, and harder to kill opponents, make the gunplay feel much more sluggish then in the other games. That, coupled with poor maps make me prefer the multiplayer of Halo 2. Not to be too hard on Halo 3 though, it's definitely still an amazing game, and I'll never forget the many hours I spent playing custom-games, and I can't forget the Machinema's (Arby 'n' The Chief was my favorite). Overall, I would say Halo 2 is my 3rd favorite Halo game, and Halo 3 is my 4th favorite. Halo Reach is my 2nd favorite Halo game in-case you're wondering.
That step forward and step back is something I'm going to discuss when this series reaches its eventual end. You're dead on when it came to plasma weapons, I find that Bungie in general seemed to have trouble balancing them after CE. Thanks for the comment, and hope to see you return in the future!
Easily the most in depth review I've seen in a long time. I wish people would review games off the shelf like this. Sure it'd be full of critique with plenty of spoilers and less hype, but it'd make consumers who want to know a game inside and out completely aware of what they were buying.
I loved fighting the flood with the Assault Rifle. I know it's insanely inefficient, but thats what made it fun. You'd have to light up the flood with hundreds of bullets to kill them and it reminded me of Starship Troopers.
the most egregious of the mcc loading screens has got to be the one loading into gravemind in halo 2, cause it just shows the entire gravemind, completely ruins any surprise.
"Ten year old code" Models, textures, sounds don't age well most of the time, because of computers being less powerful. Code is another thing. Old code is often times optimized heavily due to computer restrictions. Even if there are better ways of doing things, code doesn't really stagnate.
They can age well but diffrently. The restrictions can lead to have an unique charm. Sound and Music from certen 8/16 bit consoles or visuals of the Ps1. People love this, one of the reason why emulators are not so awesome for retro fans.
^this. code especially for console games is riddled with little tricks and shortcuts that may utterly break EVERYTHING if run on anything but that OG hardware it was meant for. When coding for weak hardware. You are going to cut corners. And boy does it show when you plop that sucker onto new tech.
Luckily the Xbox is named so because it uses the direct X API, so the old code isn't going to be much closer to what you would find on a PC and not say a gamecube.
Code does age, optimizations made back then often don't work on modern computers. For example, the famous Quake3 fast inverse square root hack works slower than direct floating point arithmetic in modern GPUs and CPUs nowadays.
The Library is honestly one of my favorite levels not just in CE but in the Halo franchise. The way it completely flips the gameplay on its head and forced you against the wall provides for unique encounters and a change of pace. I hate the Flood in the other two games, but I find fighting them exhilarating in CE for reasons I can’t really explain. I agree that it’s too long, but I still really enjoy the Library for how it adds elements of horror and how the tone goes from mysteriously awesome to mysteriously cold and creepy, and the repetitiveness of the level further accentuates that feeling. I think I’m the only person on planet Earth that thinks this but hey, just sayin.
I have some bloody good memories playing this with my father for hours on multiplayer and him sitting next to me while I played the campaign (tried to play anyways). It's one of the many memories I want to remember forever. Don't know why it has so much meaning to me but it does and that's why I'll always love this game. Might bust it out and try hook it up so me and dad can vs each other again . Good video mate have a good one
+Rob Cram As someone that owns one, I call it an Xbone, along with VCR, plastic brick, and NSA spy unit, lots of things. I do it for fun, not out of trying to start anything console war related.
I remember getting up very early on sunday just to get it over with in the library level. As a teen the flood wasn't scary even with all the meticulous build-up to the yellow flakes falling from the ceiling making that unsettling sound. That isolated feeling being out in deep space on an alien planet, deep underneath the surface. The Thing on Xbox was a lot more tense and unpredictable with no human npcs creating those safe sections because anyone could be infected.
Fantastic video, and glad to see the teaser for one about 2 at the end. Hopefully there will be one for all of them, there's not nearly enough in depth content about Halo on youtube. Gonna give some of my thoughts on CE, and respond to yours: I think the wide open levels are as much as a detriment as they are a benefit to Halo CE now. At the time, they were a huge novelty, but now they are an annoyance: They have a large amount of space, but the game doesn't fill them with enough content to keep t interesting. Many of the larger levels have you going many miles in various directions and only having something to engage with once you get there. They feel empty. Later titles were better about filling this space or simply not having it be as large, presumably due to better hardware. Regarding the pistol, and the "jack of all trades" precision weapon archtype that the BR and other guns followed in, I feel the entire concept of these weapons is counter to the purpose of the weapon limit. You are limited to 2 weapons so that you don't have the best tool to every situation with you at all times, forcing you to plan. And the Pistol isn't even the worst offennder in the franchise, at least in CE every weapon had a unique role, and they were the best in that role, so even if the pistol was overpowered, the other guns still got use. In 2, 3, and 4, the other guns either weren't even useful in their own intended usage, or there were multiple weapons that did the same thing, on top of having a very good all around weapon such as the BR or DMR. I really disagree about the criticism of the art style change of the remake. Yes, it's not 100% faithful to the original, but I dispute this is a bad thing. The lore and fictional unvierse of the halo franchise is extremely important, there are nearly 20 novels, 10 comics, 5 guidebooks, and a variety of ARG's for a reason. As you say in the video The remake updated the graphics to, what as of the time it was released, the "canonical" appearance of what is in game. Furthermore, if you look at the concept art of the game, the remake's visuals aren't as far off as you might think from Bungie's original intent, as well as the fact that many of the textures and models in the original are so simply a more faithful visual upgrade would look rather bare. I think the one part of this cirticism that is valid is regarding the swamp in guilty spark being too bright, but even that doesn't bother me. Regarding the comment that the forerunner structures look too clean in the remake, as far as the lore goes, that's how it should look. Forerunner metal sturcutres don't really age or weather.
+Jabberwockxeno I'm glad that you enjoyed the video and are looking forward to a follow up on Halo 2, I'm hoping to have it out sometime in October, these in-depth videos take a long time to write, record, and edit. The levels were indeed a novelty for the time, but you do raise a good point in that the levels don't have a whole ton of things going on in the spaces between encounters. To me, that's more to give a sense of quiet time, a chance to let the player breathe and bring in some contrast between relentless combat sections. Moving through these larger levels is enjoyable for me, except when backtracking comes into play during Two Betrayals. Weapons in Halo games have always featured altered roles in Single-player compared to Multiplayer. As I replayed Halo 2 again recently, I forgot how useful Dual-wielding is in Single-player, and the number of combinations, where as in multiplayer, the number of useful combinations is lower due it being more fast paced. As said, I've put hundreds, possibly thousands of hours into Halo multiplayer, and perhaps it's just my personal preference, but I feel that a jack of all trades weapon in multiplayer is necessary for competitive play; otherwise it leads to a lot more deaths that you will not be able to avoid. I'm probably in the minority on this, but I don't really care if a long running series makes changes to its art style overtime, be it Dragon Age, Halo, or Tom Clancy franchises. The reason I'm not a fan of Anniversary's art style, is that it doesn't sync up with the rest of the game's sound, music, and atmosphere. I don't mean to spoil my Halo 2 video, but in Halo 2 Anniversary, I'm more accepting of the visual changes despite them being as much a departure from the originals as H1 Anniversary was, simply because it also replaced the sound effects, music, and cut-scenes. It's all about consistency for me, and the H1A art style didn't keep in line with the rest of the game for me. Thank you for the comment, I always enjoy intelligent discussions about games.
This video and the rest of your Halo series offer some of the best analysis and chronicling I've ever seen of the franchise. It's absolutely criminal that these don't have hundreds of thousands of views, and I can't believe I'm only finding them now. Thank you so much for taking the time to put these together. And I definitely second the request to do a similar series for the Gears of War games!
My video on Halo Reach has kinda exploded... funny, considering its the one thats pissed off the most people due to my many criticisms. But the series as a whole has picked up rapidly since a very kind user posted it on Reddit, all new viewers are owed to him. I'm glad you enjoyed it! I've gotten a couple requests for Gears, but I don't believe I'll be able to do them. Gears of War is a franchise I enjoy, but don't have nearly as much time spent on as Halo to be this in depth with them. I'm sure I'll do videos on them for a topic at some point in the future though.
Ha, no worries; can't have everything. For the record, I thought your Halo Reach video was excellent. It was reassuring to see that I wasn't the only one horrified by Bungie's disastrous execution of such a neat pretense. I will be crossing my fingers in anticipation of a Halo 4 video, though... ;)
As someone who loves this franchise with all of my heart, it’s great to see someone give it a completely fair shake without the bias of years of replaying these games over and over. I watched all of these videos years ago and am rediscovering them now and I really appreciate your style and writing for your videos. Raycevick, well done man.
That was an insanely good analysis. I think you've inspired me to achieve the same kind of objectivity and exactitude when I make my videos now. As for Halo, I didn't sit down and play through Halo CE or 2 beyond their first couple levels until 2010, on the PC. On the other hand, I had Halo 3 day one and played through most of the game. Interesting you didn't mention 1) the Mac version of Halo: CE and 2) the animation framerate cap in Halo: CE on the computer versions. I think Halo: CE's graphics are worth discussing as well, since it's technically the first console game to use bumpmapping, that in itself a notable achievement, but luckily it was a standard feature on the Xbox.
Halo 1 is a perfect storm: story, music (truly emotion invoking), controls, user interface, multiplayer, good AI for the time, weapon variety, enemy characters/factions, fluidity and cohesion of all aforementioned aspects. I could go into further detail but I'm a lazy bastard. Thanks for the introspective review of the game sir, many fond memories attached to this classic.
My only nitpick with this is the segment regarding the quality of the Forerunner structures. The reason it looks so pristine & clean in the anniversary remake is because the installation is in fact maintained. Having experienced both games first hand, I have to say that I like the Forerunner interiors better in the remake. The cleanliness invokes a feeling of uncomfortable silence; like if everyone suddenly vanished instantly in a flash. I feel like this inadvertently intertwined well with the disappearance of the Forerunners. It really emphasizes the eeriness & mystery factors substantially.
A very solid analysis indeed, though it's not like Halo CE being flawed is exactly a 'revelatory' view to take. I think most look past the flaws because as you say, Halo CE remains so eminently playable despite its age and was an industry game-changer so will always be considered with a somewhat sideways view. I didn't agree with all your criticisms (for instance, I really enjoy the change of pace fighting the flood provides even if their signature 'The Library' level is the worst designed) and though I felt your voiceover was a bit on the disparaging side overall, I still enjoyed your very well edited, structured and articulated analysis.
Dude. This video is great!. Your love for this series really shines. You also don't rush it and you are gentle on the ears... making me wait on your every word. You know how to tell a hell of a yarn... you aren't blinded but you don't go overboard with being nasty. That tells me you have a style all of your own. I can tell you respect and even love halo. I have to ask why do you now have other videos critiquing other game series because you did a great job with this Shep
I agree about the assault on the control room shit. Those repeated rooms and and bridges were so FUCKING REPETITIVE AND I STILL HAVE NOT FINISHED THE LEVEL! Other than that the game was very good
Have to agree with you, especially that level. When I first played it, the repetitive rooms and bridges had me starting to think the game had glitched and was looping me as there was little way to tell if I was progressing or not
He kinda glosses over just how terrible The Library is in this video, because oh my god I could hate The Library for literally hours. Here, have some shitty brown wall textures. Here's like one fucking corridor. Now walk through seventeen thousand identical shitty brown corridors. *EXCEPT* you have to fight the Flood the entire time, an enemy who dogpile you constantly and infection forms can kill you super fast if your shields drop. Oh and you HAVE to constantly stop and murder them or else the game won't give you any checkpoints. And the game keeps stopping you for no reason. And there's an annoying douchebag giving irritatingly peppy commentary the entire time who won't fucking help. And the entire level is just a huge waste of time because 343 could have just *teleported me to the fucking top floor in the first place* saving us all this humongous waste of time. In conclusion, The Library is the worst level ever designed in a video game. Ever.
The explanation for Cortana's mood swing when she gets plugged into the Control Room is because there was so much information to process and she was so excited to process it all that the massive information load slowed her ability to process things down. All she could think to do is tell Chief to go save Keyes in that moment.
I don't understand this complaining about how the twist has lost its affect on you after knowing what the twist is. Are you still shocked each time you watch the twist in Se7en? Give me a break
I often find 343's chatter sinister. "Why would you hesitate to do what you have already done?" _"Last time, you asked me, if it was my choice, would I do it? Having had considerable time to ponder your query, my answer has not changed. "_
My nostalgia for Blood Gulch and Sidewinder don’t even really come from playing with other people. I would just start up a match and explore the levels alone or with my little brother. I did the same with the campaign. I would start the game and then completely ignore the objectives while I looked around every inch of the map until I was finally ready to move on. It feels so good just to exist within it’s world for some reason.
Ill always remember the Flood level. My friend and I would play on a massive 60 inch projection tv. If you know what those were like... they darkened everything and you couldn't see in the levels very well from certain angles. This made those levels that much more terrifying.
What I really appreciate from this review is that you don't have a bias. You review it like any other game and don't skimp over any low points. Most people rate it off a fun factor, which will always be high. But analyzing everything that a game has to offer will bring a different outlook. An outlook that you captured very well in this video. It's a flawed masterpiece. Especially considering the time it came out. Some people love it, some people hate it, some people don't care about it. But it pushed the boundaries of what FPS could do, inspiring others to do the same. It deserves the respect it gets.
Loving your vids, was happy to see my own teams H1 mod SPV3 was briefly featured in there. Would love to give you guys a copy of our next beta! Keep up the great work!
14 years old already. damn. I can't describe how big of an impact this game has had on the 13year old me. I can even recall the smell of the freshly unboxed xbox like it was yesterday. I liked your review. Some bits where though to swallow because I took it to personal and it's easy to talk down on a game with 14years worth of 2020 hindsight. But you had some solid arguments and a interesting approach comparing it with modern games.
Clearly you didn't like btb, Blood Gulch really is the greatest Halo CE map imo and the other big maps were great too (especially the PC only maps), liked the rest of the vid though! I wish they would bring Halo 5 to the PC as the new 24 player mp mode looks amazing, the campaign looks great too, hopefully it is as I'm mostly about the campaign. I agree about the anniversary edition missing the mark in art style, I really prefer the original, the update had little of it's charm and even had much muddier textures when looking up close, if you can believe that.
+Jeremiah Tothenations I enjoy BTB in Halo 1, I just don't think that a flat canyon with two bases is the greatest map design to ever appear in all of Halo's mulitplayer. Glad that I'm not the only one that had mixed feelings on Sabre's art style. Thanks for watching!
To this day I still keep coming back to Halo CE’s campaign. It’s been over 16 years since I played through it, and it still gives me joy to come back to it. Easily the best single-player experiences I’ve ever had with an FPS.
still by far the best Halo game. Halo1 flood are bloody great to fight. There's very little I would level as bad in this game. I think it's easy to level criticism at even the best things but Halo remains that one gorgeous fluke that gets just about everything right. Still the masterpiece it once was
Dang, hit the nail on the head with everything I loved about the game growing up and why I listen to the soundtrack when I'm doing homework, but still touched on all of the flaws that I noticed when replaying it recently. Awesome review!
I still don't think there has been a halo game to perfect or give the idea of fighting flood more heft to it. Halo 3 tried, but I still was not quite feeling it.
Oh, man, I never had to worry about that "exposed" hallway you showed when you were talking about resource scarcity in legendary difficulty. I always killed an elite before it could get to a fighter, hijacked that fighter, and flew it straight through to the end of the level. The hallway is *just* wide enough to fit it through, and lemme tell you, it's super cathartic to just lay waste to line after line of foes.
You know, you're right about Cortana. Her insanity is a vestige of a lost story decision. She was once going to be a boss. Originally, she was going to go insane and take over halo due to her simply not being a calibre of AI able to run a halo. Maybe it was an alternate path, or maybe it was in fact the primary ending, IDK. This would also explain why the last levels are rushed. Or vice versa.
halo 1 had its own version of development hell so its quite honestly a miracle that it was as good as it was, and I can honestly overlook the issues even tho they shouldn't go undocumented.
Well, it's technically "half of the campain" recycled by using places you already knew. But it's a bit unfair to say they just got copied. Those levels were expanded or closed areas suddenly became reachable which is not the exact same as mirroring a game world and letting the player run from the end to the start. Revisiting the alien space ship to rescue Keyes and the control room level have such a changed feeling considering that the flood kills more and more humans and the covenant on the Halo. Seeing grunts and their elite running from the flood in the snow level is just something that is better delivered when you previously were on this level and saw everyone pretty much chilling (grunts even sleeping) while they were hunting the few survivors of the Pillar of Autumn. The player is at the liberary while the Halo gets infected by the flood in a glance and the player experiences the covenants panic when he makes his way to the end level. In my opinion it wouldn't be as memorable if Halo had more than ten different levels as they pretty much tried everything to make the world spaces visually seperate from each other with an island, a snow level, a swamp, highlands, two completely different spaceships. I actually like Halo 1 more than Halo 2 because of the levels and enemies. And don't get me started on the other Halo titles. Only played a bit of Halo 3 and ODST but didn't like both and only heared shit about the other installments except Reach.
Nice bit of nostalgia watching this. I was in college when it came out and it was one of the first console shooters you can play connected multiplayer... sort of. It was relegated to local area LAN, but it made for real fun times in the dorm. And to this day, as you alluded to in the vid, the shooting mechanics are very similar to the way Destiny plays today, right down to the co-play between guns and grenades. It certainly did have it's shortcomings, but what it did well hit it so far out of the park it captivated a generation of game enthusiasts for years to come.
That's the way I like reviews. Great job at putting things into perspective, an important aspect many reviewers do miss. The praises were genuine and the critiques intelligent, keep it up
I thought so too. But then you read the books, and realize the lost potential of the game and its storytelling. Master Chief is a very complex person under that armor, but nothing of that is ever shown in the game. Same goes for Cortana and all her perplexed thinking and assessment of the situation. It is also an epic segment to read about how the marines fought their way back to the pillar of autumn for the final escape, answering how Johnson managed to get his ass over there in the first place.
@@Wistbacka Well in 2001 the video game standards for storytelling were really bad. Combat Evolved was WAY better than almost everything else in 2001 for video game storytelling. Now I guess you could say the story simplified things, but bungie's aim was to make you the player be Master Chief, they weren't trying to make you play in the shoes of another character, rather you were the character.
I *just* beat 'Halo: Combat Evolved' on for the first time EVER. What a rush! I played it on Xbox One on 'Halo: The Master Chief Collection'and yeah, I can't wait to play 'Halo 2'! Playing it was like watching 'Star Wars: A New Hope' and seeing were modern space opera/sci-fi fantasy got their inspiration.
The only thing I disagree about is the pistol. I've found that almost everyone throughout Halo: CE, Halo: Reach - Anniversary playlists, and MCC (except those people that use the AR for some reason...) know just how to use the pistol and it results in everyone using the same gun. It's not so much that I dislike how OP it is, it's that it is the only weapon people use...that gets kind of stale. Like Assault On The Control Room rooms stale.......DMR FTW ;D
Great video but one thing I think I can explain, the part about the teleportation grid. It makes sense for her to find out about it when she was in the controll room as she had access to every file in the ring system, and as she thought it to be too risky she felt unecessary to even mention it unless absolutely needed to.
One thing that I feel like many forget when looking back at this game, is just where the world of gaming was when this hit shelves. I will NEVER forget the first time I walked in a room and saw someone playing Halo. Why? Because it looked sounded and felt unlike anything I’d ever seen before. I was absolutely enamored.
