Halo: The Master Chief Collection will become available on Nov. 11, but a few lucky gaming journalists were given the chance to take the four remastered Halo titles out for a spin in an all-day play session at Microsoft's San Francisco headquarters.
Halo, which was developed by Bungie Studios and later on acquired by Microsoft, is a military sci-fi first-person shooter game widely considered to be the best game of its kind for the video game console.
It has been 13 years since Microsoft first released Halo: Combat Evolved in 2001, and with its nearing anniversary just a week from now, the company is about to release a hotly anticipated collection of four remastered titles. The reviews are in on all four titles, namely Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, Halo 2, Halo 3 and Halo 4, albeit most of them are made for the collection's single-player mode since Microsoft will only be releasing the multi-player next week.
The verdict? Halo: The Master Chief Collection is a nostalgic trip down memory lane that will remind gamers just how big a part the Halo series played in their gaming hobby and in their lives. For those who haven't had a chance to play the game, the remastered titles are the best way to get a nice introduction to the Spartans.
The gameplay will not be different, as Microsoft's 343 Industries knows very well not to change much of something that is largely accepted and loved. However, 343 Industries gives the games the full high-definition treatment in 60 frames per second, allowing for richer, smoother and more vivid graphics and animations. It's not something gamers would immediately notice, but the studio added in the ability to switch back and forth between the remasters and the older versions without inducing lags, and that is where the effect of going for 1080p resolution stands out.
Daniel George of GameSided describes it best:
"Most textures, objects, backgrounds and skyboxes receive a highly detailed upgrade, breathing new life into a game treasured by countless fans," he says. "The way the light reflects off of water, shines in your character's visor and provides dramatic tone brings character to a foreboding scenery. Finally, it goes without saying that the re-mastered Halo skyboxes are richly detailed in their approximation within the galaxy, illuminating the stars at night so fondly."
Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, which was based on the 2011 version released for the Xbox 360, certainly looks good with the improved visuals, but most of those who reviewed the game agree that it is actually Halo 2 that is clearly the star of the entire collection.
Hardcore Gamer's Matt Whittaker says Halo 2 is "nothing short of a sight to behold," thanks to its 1080p rendering and more colorful visuals than Combat Evolved. He describes a scene in Regret, the ninth mission of Halo 2, where players have to ride through an underwater elevator several times.
"The algae and aquatic foliage littering the lost artifacts of the past are highlighted by the array of sea-creatures swimming about; it's a dead world brimming with life," he says. "A quick press of the Xbox One's View button shows that this gorgeous environment simply didn't exist in 2004, as the elevator is simply surrounded by darkness and faint outlines."
Also remarkable in Halo 2 is the drastically improved audio for "everything from gunfire to the soundtrack," according to Kotaku's Tina Amini. Even better than the new audio are the cutscenes, where Blur Studio poured in everything it got to achieve astounding visual fidelity. Unlike in Combat Evolved, gamers will be able to switch back and forth between the older cutscenes and reimaginings in Halo 2.
Polygon's Arthur Gies describes the cutscenes in Combat Evolved as "obviously dated and wooden" but Blur Studio went out of its way to render "just under an hour of frequently jaw-dropping pre-rendered movies."
"The lavish treatment serves to make a ten-year-old game feel unfamiliar and exciting, though the new coat of paint only works because of how well the underlying structure holds up," Gies says.
Still, not everyone is happy with all the attention poured on Halo 2, especially since the title is considered to have the weakest narrative. Though the action remains as tight as in the other titles, Halo 2 lets gamers play a second character, the Arbiter, through levels that The Verge's Sam Byford calls "boring slogs against an uninteresting zombie-like enemy known as the Flood."
"And the writing reaches a nadir even for Halo, with an interminable focus on Star Wars-prequel-style politics and a cliffhanger ending that's no less frustrating ten years ago," Byford adds.
When gamers transition from the cliffhanger ending in Halo 2 to Halo 3, they might be surprised by the less impressive visuals. It's not exactly ugly. Indeed, Halo 3 has evolved quite well in terms of graphics, but what is truly worth remembering is the flexibility and replayability that the title gives.
"Halo 3's campaign flowed between diverse areas in a pleasing cadence, and made vehicles available on levels that were enjoyable to play on foot as well," writes Chris Watters of GameSpot. "The traditional array of combat tools was augmented with deployable equipment and a host of new gear, all of which gave the player a variety of ways to approach a given combat scenario."
And speaking of tools and gear, The Master Chief Collection makes all of them unlocked and available from the get-go. It's not just gear and weapons, though. Every piece of content, from missions to levels and abilities, is unlocked, letting gamers explore and enjoy all their favorite playlists to their heart's content.
Halo 4, which is already in high-definition, only received the standard upgrades. Reviews are divided when it comes to improvements. Whittaker, for instance, hails the title's "fantastically detailed textures and extreme high-fidelity cutscenes that occasionally give Halo 2 Anniversary's cinematics a run for their money."
Byford, however, disagrees. Although he says Halo 4's graphics are "astonishingly beautiful", the game "takes too many cues from its contemporaries, with flashy scripted sequences and unnecessary additions like a sprint button."
For all the massive content that's already included in the four titles, 343 Industries also throws in six Halo 2 remastered maps and something else Halo fans won't be able to resist: access to the beta version of Halo 5: Guardians, which comes out in late December.
Still, the focus on quantity over quality caused Halo's maker to make a few sacrifices, as technical issues are peppered here and there throughout the game.
George cites minor problems such as water failing to mirror its reflection properly, thus causing stuttering, and more serious stuff such as the Xbox One crashing after nearly finishing Delta Halo, though he expects that the massive Day 1 patch requiring more than 20GB of space should fix many of these technical glitches.
Technical problems considered, Halo: The Master Chief Collection continues to deliver on all fronts. Graphics and audio, as well as mode switching and functionality have dramatically improved, and early reviewers believe the Halo franchise is still the "definitive first-person shooter experience" that all true gamers must have.
Halo: The Master Chief Collection will be available for $60 for the Xbox One next week.
