I have to say, the fact that I have the Halo: MCC is totally borne out of selfish impulse. I had planned to get an Xbox One for some time, but was holding off for a bit as I already have a PS4 with plenty of games still to play but after watching Drew/Alexis' Extra Life stream followed by the MCC QL and listening to Drew's anticipation grow on the bombcast I decided to buy an Xbox One this past Friday and dive head first into my childhood.

I grew up at the perfect time for Halo. I was a senior in high school and living in a small town where I had a bunch of friends over the house every night. The release of Halo quickly resulted in endless nights with 4 of us huddled around the TV, or as many as 16 in a lan setting playing halo multiplayer and co-op endlessly. Then as my friends and I all went to local community colleges, we continued the tradition game after game as the series continued, Halo was a massive part of our lives.

Anyway, I could go on forever about my thoughts on how much Halo has impacted me, and FPS console shooters in general, and why I think it's one of gamings greatest properties, but I'll save that for another time. The real point of this post is that I spent all this money on a fancy new console to that I could take a nice trip back in time to the games I loved and adored so much, games I found to be infallible, and find out how it holds up. I've started out with the original Halo:CE, now beautifully remastered and rendering at 1080p/60FPS and I'm taking notes as I go along for amore long-form and organized write-up at a later time, but for now I thought I might post my notes as I go along.

Notes:

So far I have played through the first five chapters having just lat night beat "Assault on the control room". I'm playing on Heroic and switching back and forth between original/remastered graphics in most areas.

-I love the way Halo:CE handles grenades. You get a fairly constant supply and they are vital to combat. Long fuses force the player to use them strategically. The grenades also F***ING EXPLODE in this game. I had forgotten just how huge and destructive grenades were in the original game. It's refreshing in the world of modern shooters with pathetically weak explosives.

-Encounter design was fresh and exciting at the time and still holds up. Every encounter feels like a puzzle to solve (even if I remember most of them by heart)

-Pacing and build, for the most part, is on point. The story feeds you information while asking new questions at a great clip, keeping you constantly in awe of the mystery while still feeling progress with each new story bit.

-Sound design. This speaks for itself. Epic, mysterious, magical.

-Silent Cartographer is STILL as awesome as you remember.

-Some of the mechanics do feel a bit dated at this point. While I always liked the more deliberate character pace of Halo games (read: slow, kind of "sluggish" movement) as well as the more traditional "Shoot from the hip" style, Halo: CE does feel particularly rough in these areas with me finding myself looking for a sprint button or some tighter aiming to reduce the spread of my Assault Rifle.

-The checkpoint are pretty rough and sometimes placed in really frustrating spots.

-Having just relived the repetitive corridors toward the end of "Assault on the Control Room", I'm starting to dread the thought of moving on the endless hell that is "The Library". I forgot just how much of the level design in the first game felt like repetitive filler.

-Most importantly I am enjoying myself way more than I expected. And so far I am happy to say that you can, in fact, go home again. Now fix matchmaking, my pistol is calling for "Hang 'em High"!

I beat the campaign for Halo: CE the other night and man was it satisfying. That game is still great and getting to relive it with new visuals/sound/performance made the game feel today the way it feels in my memories with all the built up nostalgia. The game definitely "feels" a little too long thanks mostly to some of the long, repetitive level design and constant backtracking in the back half of the story. I actually enjoy fighting the flood in these games and some of these encounters were even still just too much, with enemy waves continuing for what feels like forever.

That all said I'm excited to start up Halo 2, the real star of this collection. If I remember correctly a lot of the backtracking issues I had with the first have been fixed, even though the story/combat is probably my least favorite of the series.

Campaigns are still super cool. But I find CE to be way more fun than 2 despite the simpler design.

3 still has the best encounter design, though!

That is exactly how I feel, its like playing your memory of the game.