Halo: The Master Chief Collection

By BajiRav
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Grand Master

Emn1ty

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Playing the campaigns of the first two Halo games just reminds me why I never liked them -- Bungie was absolutely terrible at designing levels.

 

What about them don't you like? Out of curiosity.

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Anthony Tosie Veteran

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What about them don't you like? Out of curiosity.

Not really sure what kind of clarification you're looking for. I think the level design in the first two games is, for the most part, absolutely abysmal. There are a few bright spots, such as The Silent Cartographer, but the majority of the levels -- especially those after the Flood are introduced in the first game -- have exceptionally poor designs where the environments are merely repeat after repeat of the same kinds of rooms with wave after wave of enemies, something that should have ended after first-person shooters made the jump to truly 3D environments.

 

To top it off, on several levels there are multiple instances of the budget-bin FPS cliche: an enemy with a massively overpowered weapon popping out at the last second, a poor design choice that seemed to have ended years before the first Halo came out. Yet in Halo, Bungie apparently thought it'd be a good design choice to place a random Flood-infected marine with a rocket launcher at the end of a hallway following a major fight just for the sake of it. I'm not saying that because it makes the game more difficult -- I've been every Halo game multiple times, on legendary solo at least once for each title -- just because it's such a terrible gimmick.

 

A bigger issue I have is that there's no atmosphere to any of the Forerunner and Covenant areas in Bungie's original graphics for the first two games, making the sameness of the design even more grating. Bungie went on to rectify this in "Halo 3," but the first two Halo games lack almost any atmosphere for non-UNSC areas. It's a shame, because Bungie did a terrific job designing the Pillar of Autumn, and the level design in The Silent Cartographer is fantastic, but it seems like they ran out of steam after the first few levels of both "Halo" and "Halo 2."

 

I'm fully aware that you're a big fan of the first two games, and my response isn't to engage in some sort of argument, it's merely to clarify my position. I respect your opinion and can understand why you love the games, but for me their level designs are among the weakest of any major first-person shooter games released around their time frames.

Grand Master

magik

Posted
Posted

So I'm still having a ridiculously hard time playing MCC with some friends. It takes some jujitsu to try and get me and a couple of friends into a game session in order to do some matchmaking. Even more difficult when there's any guest accounts involved. We often have to resort to doing a custom game, and even then there's frequent crashes/freezes and forced restarts that have to happen and then we have to jump through hoops to get back into the same game session again. It's abysmal.

 

I hope that now we're past the holiday break that 343 shapes up and fixes this sorry excuse for a release. It literally feels like they hardly tested this at all before releasing. Tsk tsk :(

 

To top it all off, even the recent UGC tournaments suffered from the numerous bugs in the game. You could notice this by the awkwardly long pauses between game sessions and the "exit the build" steps that kept happening on the big screen in the background. It's really embarrassing. 

Grand Master

The_Decryptor Veteran

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  • Veteran
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I'm currently playing through the campaign on Halo:CE on the MCC.

 

Im going with Heroic for difficulty...  Was trying to give Legendary a shot, but just couldn't take dying a b'jillion times...

I'm still too awful for a heroic run, I tried back with Reach and only did the first level, with Halo 4 I got up to the point where the Prometheans got introduced, and I was so bad I had to get Timan to show me how to do the level :laugh:

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Grand Master

Showan

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I'm still too awful for a heroic run, I tried back with Reach and only did the first level, with Halo 4 I got up to the point where the Prometheans got introduced, and I was so bad I had to get Timan to show me how to do the level :laugh:

 

 

I'm on Heroic for Halo:CE... And trust me, I take my share of deaths...

 

I definitely know when I'm doing ok, and I definitely know when I should just call it a day with Halo.

Grand Master

LaP

Posted
Posted

He's got a point though that even outside Neowin (he just said 'the press'), it doesn't seem to be a big deal, which actually does seem odd. Perhaps it's because there's a heck of a lot more to it than MP, but it does seem strange.

 

Lot of reviews criticized HTMCC for it's broken multiplayer.

Grand Master

Matthew S.

Posted
Posted

I've played all the original releases on their respective consoles (Hey, Halo 1 on MCC is using the PC version, so I'm right at home) and I must say... they bumped the difficulty level up on all the games.

I'm still too awful for a heroic run, I tried back with Reach and only did the first level, with Halo 4 I got up to the point where the Prometheans got introduced, and I was so bad I had to get Timan to show me how to do the level :laugh:

You should get on with me than, you, myself and my buddie could get on Halo 1-4 legendary coop :p.

Grand Master

+InsaneNutter MVC

Posted
  • MVC
Posted

How are people finding this playing co-op?

 

I've found Halo 2 is extremely buggy, the game had crashed my console to the dashboard 6 times by the time myself and a mate got through the campaign doing split screen co-op...

 

One crash can be replicated every single time... on the regret level right at the end when your in the temple and you have to knock the prophet off his hovering thorn, the game freezes. You can hear the sound constantly repeating and after about 5-10 seconds the game crashes to the dashboard.

 

We tried 3 times on co-op and got the game to crash in the same place every time, I then did it on single player and was able to pass the level fine.

 

I posted the Halo 2 Game Crash Bug on the Waypoint Forums and it appears others have had the same issue too.

 

If you read the Master Chief Collection Forum on Halo Waypoint it appears many people are having issues with the campaign too.

Grand Master

The_Decryptor Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
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Yeah, MP in the MCC is kinda a crapshoot, mainly due to how it's structured (Each game runs separately, as well as the UI. So a lobby in the UI needs to be created and joined separately in each game, transitioning between them, etc.)

...

You should get on with me than, you, myself and my buddie could get on Halo 1-4 legendary coop :p.

ha, thanks, but I'd be the straggler who kept dying all the time, never mind that I'm in Australia, so we're talking about a rather large amount of latency (My co-op run with Timan lasted a single map because of that)

Grand Master

George P Global Moderator

Posted
  • Global Moderator
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No one said it'd be easy to take 4 different games and jam them together into one. Most if not all of the MP issues are probably because the code between the 4 games is different, I think they'll get it all fixed with a few more updates before the month is over though.

Grand Master

Emn1ty

Posted
Posted

Yeap, unfortunately it still is very much broken. Practically unplayable with a party of 2 or more.

 

On the bright side, this has allowed me to spend more time with the Halo 5 Beta and it's really starting to grow on me! :)

 

They need to tone down the grenades in the Halo 5 Beta, so tired of them launching me into the air completely defenseless.

Grand Master

magik

Posted
Posted

Actually it's not.

 

I'm afraid you might be on that island alone. Thousands of redditers, halowaypoint posts and tweets seem to suggest an alternate reality to yours.

 

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm probably the biggest Halo fan on this forum, but I can't even defend this at this point. It really is a mess, unfortunately. Facts are stubborn :(

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Grand Master

The_Decryptor Veteran

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I haven't tried the H5 beta much because when I did it was pretty much entirely broken, my shots didn't hit, I'd get killed behind cover, etc.

Then I got stuck in a broken lobby before myself and had to exit to the dashboard and force quit the game.

Grand Master

magik

Posted
Posted

I haven't tried the H5 beta much because when I did it was pretty much entirely broken, my shots didn't hit, I'd get killed behind cover, etc.

Then I got stuck in a broken lobby before myself and had to exit to the dashboard and force quit the game.

 

When was the last time you played? I think they've tweaked some settings and such and I haven't noticed the problem of getting hit behind cover, although some people say that's due to the amount of bullet magnetism in the game which I don't think has changed.

 

As for matchmaking, it seems to be much more consistent now, previously I had to quit the build often to get a working match but now it seems much smoother -- at least for Slayer. The other playlists take much longer to find a match, but they eventually do.

Grand Master

Hedon

Posted
Posted

I'm afraid you might be on that island alone. Thousands of redditers, halowaypoint posts and tweets seem to suggest an alternate reality to yours.

 

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm probably the biggest Halo fan on this forum, but I can't even defend this at this point. It really is a mess, unfortunately. Facts are stubborn :(

 

Nope, not alone. In fact, I am on an planet with the majority. 10's of thousands of redditers, halowaypoint posts and tweet seem to suggest reality, as opposed to what you are suggesting. 

 

Though, I prefer dealing with facts. Nothing to defend since it is working great Loving it.

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