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    Halo: The Master Chief Collection

    Game » consists of 6 releases. Released Nov 11, 2014

    Chronicle the classic adventures of the Master Chief with a compilation of the first four main chronological installments of the Halo series, enhanced for the Xbox One with updated graphics and easy access to every multiplayer mode in the series' history.

    The Master Chief Collection 'curse' continues

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    deactivated-64162a4f80e83

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    Platform: Windows 10. Xbox Gamepass

    You'd have thought they would've learned by now but apparently not.

    For those of you that haven't played it yet and care about audio fidelity at all I'm just going to save you a lot of time and say 'don't bother'

    For my books this is the worst sounding video game I've heard outside of those bad Genesis emulators. Sounds is drenched in booming bass, distorts, missing entire channels of sound and the mids and highs are completely inaudible.

    Enjoy Halo for it's music? Too bad

    Want to hear the NPCs dialogue? For the most part you can forget, one in 10 sentances come in loud and clear.

    Situational and spacial awareness? Nope, it's all inaudible

    But the guns sound good right? I mean they might, I couldn't tell you, I haven't heard my gun once. Same goes for the grenades which result in a barely audible *pss*

    The worst part about is Microsoft and 363 acknowledged this issue after launch and clearly knew about it ahead of time but pushed the game out anways. Please refer to this official statement

    To update Halo: Reach for Xbox One and PC required entirely changing the encoding for the game’s audio which has resulted in it sounding different from the original release. We are aware that areas of the title don’t sound like what you or we ideally want them to. It will take some time to work through solutions to improve the overall experience for audio and that work is already underway. When it is ready, we will flight to test the fixes we can make prior to updating the title. We also plan to go into more detail on our Reach audio journey in a later blog.

    Consider this post a warning for anyone looking to try this fantastic game for the first time, in this state I would not recommend it at all. Multiplayer might be functional but if you want to play the story the state of the audio is far far far too distracting. There is currently a manuel fix where you need to lower your windows sound quality to 31khz in order to prevent distortion.....

    Oh and also they forgot to include the HDR which has been promised this whole cycle but thats not a major issue.

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    cikame

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    #2  Edited By cikame

    That's very odd, i'm unaware of any remastered/re-released game that has had significant audio issues, what kind of crazy encoding did they use originally?

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    xanadu

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    Yep just tried it myself and it's real bad. What were they even doing with those flight tests??

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    Justin258

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    #4  Edited By Justin258

    It's not so bad that I can't make out anything, but there's some severe volume leveling going on here. Every sound comes across as being just as loud as every other sound.

    Also, I've been playing online with two friends and one of those keeps teleporting around and it seems like we can't even play campaign with him due to lag. That's probably just his bad internet connection (1.5mbps up, 1 or so down), but it is worth mentioning. No problems playing with my little brother, he's on 200 down/100 up.

    EDIT: So I did something that helped a bit. I went into the audio control panel and checked "disable all enhancements". I did not simply uncheck everything, I checked "disable all enhancements" and turned the music down to half. That has helped a whole hell of a lot, though this audio still needs some serious work.

    Haven't had any other real issues, though I'm scratching my head as to how and why audio became a major issue. Changing encoding, I understand, but why the hell was it changed like this? Halo 4's original release sounded better and it was pretty bad, too.

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    goosemunch

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    Same... Audio is very muffled and gun sound effects are straight up missing on my PC.

    Subtitle option is there, but ironically it only enables subtitles in cutscenes where sounds come through clear, and not during gameplay where NPCs are trying to tell you where to go.

    And one of the enemies I needed to kill to progress the story got stuck behind scene geometry (and it checkpointed me after it got stuck).

    So yeah, the first impression is not too good, considering how much they time they took for this release.

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    silversaint

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    I started the Campaign earlier today and the audio is...the worst of ANY game I have ever played. Its like they recorded the audio in the bathroom of a cheap motel.

    The port feels incredibly rushed (no real video options, can't change some keybinds, absurd auto-aim for controller on a PC release) and the design decisions are baffling.

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    Hayt

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    Is the Steam verison similarly fucked?

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    jsmith79327

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    Maybe I’m out of my mind but I haven’t noticed any issues with my audio - playing on pc via steam

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    niko_of_death

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    Noticed the audio sounded poor when I was playing the beta, assumed it was just an oddness of the sound design and/or my audio setup. Glad to know it's not just something on my end, hopefully it can be improved, the sound was always one of the best parts of Halo.

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    Justin258

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    @hayt: I bought the Steam version and yes, the audio is terrible.

    Try right clicking the audio icon in the bottom right and going to open sound settings. Then click on sound control panel. Then right click whatever device has the green check next to it and click on properties. Click o Enhancements tab and check disable all, apply, ok.

    I did this and noticed an immediate, significant improvement. So did two other people I was playing with. It's still not perfect - some gun sounds are too quiet, among other things - but it sounds like a video game and not a complete mess.

    I have played some matchmaking, too. Once I'm in a game, it's fine, but when I'm matchmaking it keeps kicking me out. It doesn't take many tries to find a game, but that is annoying.

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    deactivated-61665c8292280

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    Xbox One X player here. Campaign gun audio seems muted. But everything else is okay, I guess? A bummer to hear it's so widespread for first-time PC players.

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    Panfoot

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    Aside from the weird audio bugs, i've noticed a couple of other strange little issues with the PC version. I haven't played a Halo game since the original 360 release of Reach so maybe it's always been like this and I just forgot, but you can't crouch while moving. You have to let go of the movement keys completely before you can crouch which feels pretty bad. Another thing that is more a keyboard/mouse issue is that while the keys are rebindable, you can't bind them to multiple keys at once, meaning by default switch weapons is bound to 1, and if I try and bind it to mouse wheel(which I can only bind to either mouse up or mouse down, not both), I can't also have it still be on 1. Not a huge issue, but weird to not having it on both places like the vast majority of PC shooters.

    They do have crosshair centered by default though, thank god. I always found Bungie's insistence of having the crosshair off center towards the top of the screen bizarre and annoying.

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    tds418

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    As a day 1 MCC owner on Xbox, all I can do is chuckle. Welcome to the fun, PC players!

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    Casepb

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    So from what I can tell the ambient sounds are way too loud compared to everything else. My voices are also very loud. Everything else is very low. I've never had a game sound so off before. Besides the audio it's been mostly fine. Friendly NPCs have garbage AI, but I hear that's the norm for Halo.

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    deactivated-64162a4f80e83

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    @hayt: it launches via xbox alp so I would assume so (or at least it's meant to, if it was anything like the game pass version, which I hear it was, the game refuses to open unless you open it via desktop manually. Someone in GBI chat thinks it's because they put one of the .exe files into the wrong folder)

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    FacelessVixen

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    Eh. I'll wait. I bought more games than I have time to play anyway.

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    deactivated-64162a4f80e83

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    Actually decided to post a video comparing the crisp beautiful audio in the main menu compared to the campaign

    https://youtu.be/6VYGmK2T8Kc

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    Casepb

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    @yesiamaduck: You should turn your music down to 50. It helps a bit, but ambient sounds will still be overpowering.

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    hendeka

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    I was a little shocked to hear that the audio is so poor in this release, couldn't believe it till I saw @yesiamaduck's video but wow it really it that bad. I would assume patches are on the way, hopefully gets fixed soon :( want to play Reach again

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    sparky_buzzsaw

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    I love not learning lessons too. That's fun. That's a fun thing. This stove is hot! Whoo boy! I burned my hand. Will it happen twice if I touch it again? Let's find out!

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    Rebel_Scum

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    I remember playing 3 on acid once and the music and the way it changed when going from scene to scene was absolutely amazing, so this is critical lol.

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    ll_Exile_ll

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    The audio is certainly bad, no doubt, but my experience has been perfectly playable. The directional audio is nonexistent, distant gunshots sound terrible, and dialogue in the campaign sounds like it's being done over VOIP, but at the very least I was able to hear everything.

    I don't know, maybe I just got lucky. I didn't mess with any settings, and while the audio quality is FAR below what I would like, it's in a completely playable state for me.

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    nophilip

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    #23  Edited By nophilip

    My friend group has had a hell of a time trying to play this. Each of us have run into our own weird issues that are all inconsistent. Obviously the bad audio is there, but we're running into stuff like:

    • Party invites working maaaaaybe 1 out of 10 times (It takes us a good 10 minutes to even party up each night)
    • Absurdly long matchmaking times
    • 80% of the time one person in the group gets booted during the matchmaking process
    • 20% of the times we load up the campaign, at least one person has extremely laggy inputs

    Very disappointing release overall. We've been hyped up for the chance to play Halo on PC (none of us bought Xboxes this gen), and figured that surely this incarnation of the MCC wouldn't have anywhere near the level of problems the console release did. At this point, I have basically zero faith in 343 and their ability to put out a functioning product.

    At least the campaign is still fun when we can actually play it.

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    mikemcn

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    I had to stop playing because the sound was weirding me out, lots of supposedly intense fire fights where 85% of what you actually here is ambient Halo background music.

    They can keep lo-fi beats to kill covenant to if they want, but it should probably be a seperate audio mode... Not the default.

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    Ry_Ry

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    Thanks, I think i'll stick with my original PC copy of the first game.

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    Casepb

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    Digital Foundry video is up. I bookmarked the sound issue where they do a comparison with the assault rifle sound. It's crazy how muffled it sounds on the MCC version.

    Loading Video...

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    deactivated-61665c8292280

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    Audio bugs aside, it's been a welcome return for Firefight. I spent most of the weekend banding together with fellow Spartans and dropping Covenant by the shipload.

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    xanadu

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    Has there been any updates? Or any acknowledgement about why there is no HDR? I havent been able to find anything.

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    Justin258

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    @xanadu: 343 knows the audio is problematic and they said they are working on a fix. That's all we've had from them.

    I don't believe HDR was ever promised, was it?

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    Justin258

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    I should note that I played this every chance I got last week. Audio aside, the only issue I've had is getting Matchmaking going. Sometimes it will say it can't connect and I have to hit play again. Even with that, I rarely have to wait more than a minute to get a game going, and once I'm in I haven't had a single issue staying in, or anything other than occasional minor lag issues that every online game has. Some people do have problems so YMMV, I just wanted to make the case that this isn't anywhere near as fucked as launch MCC.

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    OurSin_360

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    Crazy how this is considered acceptable to release.

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    xanadu

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    @justin258: I could have sworn they did announce HDR. Just seems really weird to me they wouldn't have it in the PC version.

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    IEEE_GB

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    Everything seems fine to me except how insanely good people after only a week, maybe matchmaking is bad cause it always seems unbalanced

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    BrunoTheThird

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    Maybe I'm an unreasonable asshole, but it infuriates me when developers say they are, "aware of the issue." It almost sounds like, "Yes, we know already! Hold your horses."

    If you're aware, fix it first, then release it. I just don't... ah, whatever. It's still an impressive re-release in most ways; it's making me like Reach more than I did at the time.

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    cikame

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    #35  Edited By cikame

    @brunothethird: They make it sounds like they're going to attempt to fix the problems but they don't sound overly confident, but it means me and the friend i was going to play it with are just waiting to see what they do if anything.
    Also they've got 5 other games to port, they can't keep getting bogged down having to fix every game they release.

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    Casepb

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    @cikame: They are definitely working on the sound fix, they just claim it will take a while. Hopefully no more than a month or two I'd guess. My question is why the hell don't they get help from someone with experience on it? Are they not allowed to contact Bungie tech support? Ha, thinking about what that would be like. Would Bungie give them a half ass answer? Or make them stay on hold for hours?

    Seriously though, they would have had to talk to someone who worked on the game in the past right? Unless MS is forbidding them?

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    bizmarkiefader

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    I had heard about some people having audio issues and figured whatever, usually not bothered by stuff like that and its been a month so they've probably fixed it anyway.

    The sound is just unbelievably bad, it makes the whole game feel so cheap. It sounds like someone recorded the audio on a laptop from like 2006 over a built in mic. I don't know how the flagship series of one of the biggest companies on the planet doesn't have high quality audio lying around anywhere but I guess the only thing they could find was someones old Zune loaded with low quality mp3s or text ringtones someone bought for 99 cents each for their flip phone.

    I would love to know the story behind what kind of encryption issues would produce this from what it seems like what they should be working with. Did they have to reverse engineer it off a retail disc or something?

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    miser

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    The audio hasn't bothered me at all, but I welcome any improvements. The overall experience for me has been quite good.

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