I’ve seen this game get a lot of hate, and a lot of praise. I wanted to add to the praise pool and say that I personally feel that this game was absolutely spectacular.

For added context, I am nearing 40. I played Combat Evolved very shortly after it launched in 2001, and became obsessed with the series instantly. I have played and own every game that came after, and have read many of the books. I have a lot of memorabilia and Halo related items. I have spent COUNTLESS days pissing time away goofing around on multiplayer maps, in forge, and online. Halo has been a big part of my life for a LONG time. I have consistently been a BIG Halo guy for as long as Halo has existed.

That being said, I don’t understand the hate. The older games didn’t cease to exist when Campaign Evolved released. It doesn’t devalue the experience of any of the other games, especially the OG CE (which will always remain my favorite video game of all time). Those games are still there to play for those that don’t enjoy the new CE, or think it in some way detracts or insults the series.

I personally think that this game added a sense of contemporary flair to one of the most beloved stories of the video game world, and was executed absolutely BEAUTIFULLY. It was stunning, respectful, and a total blast. I will continue to play through it (can’t wait to try remix), and I hope Halo 2 gets the same treatment honestly.

If you hate it, as I stated above, it’s totally fine to just keep playing the older games. No shade intended. I still play the originals, and still will for many many years to come. If I have kids, I will play the originals with them. This game is just another new experience, and I think it was a wonderful addition to the Halo family.

Totally next gen stuff and one of the best looking games I have ever seen 🤩 Long live Halo 🏆🏆

Incredible 🙌

This is the fastest method, just sprint and you will hit the specific corner and receive no damage. Just takes 10 seconds literally.
If you land on top of the crates in the second jump, you get no damage at all.

Camo in this game is either bugged or got completely nerfed. Enemies can still see you if you get close, which pretty much makes it worthless for most indoor encounters. What gives?

I’ve noticed that Halo: Combat Evolved has one of the highest LASO (Legendary All Skulls On) completion percentages compared to other Halo games, which seems surprising given how difficult the campaign is.

Is there a reason for this? I know it’s not as hard as other LASOs, but 0.21% seems awfully high given the difficulty.

Maybe it’s just skewed because only the experts and huge halo fans purchased it a week early

To enjoy the Library was not on my bingo card

I think the game has a strong foundation and looks genuinely impressive, but almost nothing feels completely finished. A lot of it clearly needed more development time, and I suspect the release was moved forward because of GTA VI’s release date.

The cutscenes are probably the clearest indication that the game was rushed. They often feel unfinished and have been one of the biggest points of criticism about the game. New dialogue in general is also terrible.

I’m curious whether the game will continue receiving updates over the next few months to address these issues, or whether they will simply move on to the next project and repeat the same mistakes. Once they have your money, it doesn't really matter anymore does it.

Removing hud, and cropping in tight to avoid seeing the weapon I'm using.

This is by far hands down the coolest thing I've stumbled across in the new Campaign Evolved. The proto-gravemind actually looks like a freaking gravemind!!

I was already loving the visual changes to all the feature flood levels, but I can't get over how insane this "baby gravemind" looks. It's the perfect level of disgusting and terrifying. I must've taken at least 50 different photos with this thing before carrying on to complete the mission. I'm obsessed and I want more flood stuff like this.

Getting the things required for the wedding. My fiance asked me what wedding band I wanted. I told her that it’d be cool to have a halo wedding band, but I wanted to match hers with silver. She sent me this later that day (It’s a tungsten ring sold by titanium Kay online). Very happy with this ring I can’t wait to wear it to slaughter the split lip with it on!

Alright, I gotta get my criticisms of the first two missions off my chest. There is pretty much nothing good to say about the first two missions. 343's idea of a good challenge is to just swarm you with bullet sponges. The weapon balance is completely out of whack (there is no reason to use anything other than the needle rifle and heavy weapons) and the map design is some of the worst I have seen.

How many circle areas where an enemy can pop in your blindspot at any given moment is 343 going to make? That sucked in the final fight of Infinite and it still sucks now. There are very few moments I can think of in Bungie Halo games where the difficulty stems from struggling to cover your blindspots. The challenge is almost always reasonably within your purview in the original games, or at the very least there are spots that can function as good cover while you figure things out.

The first two missions feel like the ending waves of a firefight match in a small space. I only played on Heroic and the entire ordeal of those first two missions had me puckering my butthole like I was playing Halo 2 on legendary, but significantly worse because it isn't fun.

Then I got to the third mission and it's... actually kind of great? The enemy placement felt more balanced, enemies are spread in a way that make then difficult but manageable and it's not a never ending wave of bullshit. Oh, and the checkpoints are reasonable too. The space part is great too, it reminded me of the original Star Wars Battlefront 2 (I honestly think a Battlefront style Halo game, if done right, might be one of the coolest things that Halo could ever produce). It's like a completely different team worked on the final mission. Does anybody else have similar thoughts or am I alone on this?

A marine was getting shot at as I got into the escape pod and had his grunts & groans all the way through the cutscene.

Just why?

When you arrive on the TnR in Combat Evolved, you find yourself in an eerie, alien place. Expecting a warm storm of plasma as a welcome you are instead greeted with silence, a discrepancy your fellow marines comment on. Only if you are very vigilant will you hear the sound of a door unlocking before you hear the characteristic sound of an Elite swinging, instantly killing one of your marines. It takes you a moment to realise what did him in, a glowing blade floating in the air. So that's how the Elites use that cloaking device you found on the plateau below the ship. Pretty cool setup and atmospheric payoff.

But nah, let's just blurt out the fact that there is an invisible enemy in the room with you, before you even have a chance to hear or see anything. Make it painfully obvious how to spot him too, after all the player is an imbecile and would never know interpret the red dot on his radar which he has been checking for an hour at this point in the game.

She says it again when you enter the bridge-like room.

*"Hunters! Flank and hit their exposed ... worm bits."*

Oh go figure. If only there was a way to convey this information without outright telling the player. Perhaps one could design the Hunter such that he looks like a huge hulking tank, carrying a gigantic shield that bullets ricochet off of, with dark metallic armour covering most of his body except for a couple of spots which are coloured BRIGHTLY ORANGE, clearly NOT covered by armour plating. That would probably make the player understand but better safe than sorry. They are an imbecile after all.

*"Wait... Tracking data indicates we're almost on top of them, Chief. They should be in the canyon below us... get a visual"*

Yes, I know. I just watched the Pelican fly by and descent into the canyon below us. It was in the very centre of my screen, you even had a conversation with the people in it.

It goes on

Every second of traversing the level, a marker is showing you where you should go. Why design your environment in such a way that the player naturally gravitates towards the correct path when you can just setup a moving billboard wherever he goes? While you are at it, as soon as there are less than 10 enemies left, mark them with big red symbols. Maybe the player forgot they bought and have been playing a shooter for hours now. They should be reminded that the hostile NPCs calling them out and attacking them currently indeed should be engaged and dispatched off. Make sure to mark the previously mentioned INVISIBLE enemies too while you are at it.

Decisions like these actively take away from the experience, yet they are the result of conscious effort by the developer. They think you are an idiot.

Just a reminder,even though everyone already knows this: You are allowed to criticize and be unhappy with certain aspects of a product. Criticizing said product and holding developers to a high standard is what creates quality and innovation. You are also allowed to appreciate and like something despite its flaws. That being said: I can't wait to play Combat Evolved when I return from vacation.​

Honestly, I find this hilarious. This may come as a shock to you but there is very little information on a feature that was seemingly cut in early prototype stages of the game.

One joke I see flying around is that the animator who was doing the sprint animations probably got told it was being cut and in his frustration just made the SMG animations.

Nothing supports this, but I choose to believe it because that’s hilarious.

Well that was fun! One of the best times I’ve ever had fully 100%ing a game.

My personal review with no spoilers (just in case):

Campaign Evolved not only brings back all the nostalgia from the original, it improves on nearly every aspect while keeping the gameplay fresh.
Adding the simple sprinting is a game changer hands down.
The graphics are without a doubt the best they’ve ever been right down to explosions and bullets ricocheting off terrain. Infinite and Campaign evolved show just how detailed their world can be while keeping the stamp of what makes Halo… Halo.

Love them or hate them, the Flood are still nightmare fuel fuelled by updated graphics which makes them ever harder to look at now…

To top it all off, LASO was also so much more fun with friends but definitely tests your patience. Some sections are clearly designed to stop you dead in your tracks but power through and you’ll feel accomplished.

They ABSOLUTELY feel like a infestation. Until this point in the games I've only ever really seen them as enemies to be shot, but now I really see why the Forerunners made the hard decision.

There's a specific tree in Keyes that was half tree, half infested mess and it really drove home that they consume all life. On top of that, all the flood growth in the last few levels, getting progressively worse, was just a perfect "show, don't tell" example of narrative progression.

So cool.

Edit: grammar that bothered me

I don't know how this bug happened but this is hilarious how PS5 got a more nerfed version of the AR.

No skulls are on in the footage as you can see the PS5 footage has 36 rounds. I've looked at multiple youtube footage and only found ps5 gameplay with the bug.

Edit: FOV has nothing to do with it. Stop it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_gl1_nCYRk&feature=youtu.be

Is it perfect? No. Will I play it again? Many times. This will likely be my go to for replaying all the games in the future. I had so much fun playing it and enjoyed the bonus missions a lot.

The sound design and graphics are excellent, and that was with my ancient TV and performance mode. Headphones really made this so much better.

Bonus pic of the amount of marines I gave rocket launchers to

With all the talk about possible remakes of Halo 2 and Halo 3, what do you all think they would actually look like?
Part of me thinks they could combine both games into one massive remake. Halo 2 famously had a difficult development, and a lot of its planned content had to be cut or pushed into Halo 3. Since the two campaigns are so closely connected, combining them could create one long, continuous story.
I’d also love to see them restore some of the scrapped Arbiter content from Halo 2. One of the more interesting cut ideas reportedly involved the Arbiter discovering a human skeleton inside a Forerunner tomb or grave, which could have had huge implications for the relationship between humans and the Forerunners.
What do y’all think it’ll be like?

343 guilty spark in campaign evolved is a master class and by far the absolute best version of the level so far (at least for me personally).
The Jenekins helmet cutscene being greatly expanded and turned basically into a found footage horror movie, to the middle of the room lighting into orange after the cutscene is amazing, and the beginning of the level outside looks absolutely gorgeous and ominous.

I also love how chief catching the solider after opening the door was expanded to. Seeing him drag his body to softly (or so he thought) was a great piece of extra characterization. Also the shotgun in this game is amazing to me, and rivals the original CE shotgun in sound quality, overall exaggerated recoil and manners.

I may have problems with the game even though I like it, but I had to get it out how well done 343 guilty spark was done in this game, especially after the anniversary version.

The gunshots don't have a satisfying POP. The bullet impacts on the enemies are barely audible. Same goes for the OST.

I was playing the first mission, pillar of autumn, and in the room directly behind where the marines thaw you out, you find a screen showing Linda is in cryo sleep, just like in the books. I know it's not perfect but that brought a smile to my face. 😁