alo 2, 3 & 4 - Multiplayer
Halo 2
Along with CE I played Halo 2 as a kid but nowhere near as
much. As with Halo CE it was a different experience playing splitscreen. Like
Combat Evolved snipers have no recoil and are OP AF – but magnum has been
nerfed thankfully. Dual wielding was an awesome addition, makes you feel like an
absolute badass. Why they removed it in Reach beats me but it’s likely because
they weren’t very viable. Every time I pick up the two needlers I expect to
destroy but nope – it feels less impactful then one needler from CE. Still, I
love to give it a shot and it makes you feel like a badass. Something tells me
Dual Wielding is a lot more fun in non-sweaty splitscreen and the campaign. The
weapons aren’t as well tuned – any automatic weapon pales in comparison to the
default DMR making them and dual wielding obsolete as a result. Halo is it at
its best with an AR and a pistol – long range weapons should be found on the
map. CE did this the best, even if the magnum needed a hard nerf. I don’t feel
like the maps are as good as CE – Zanzibar and Headlong are a lot of fun as fan
favourites. Waterworks and Relic are okay. Tombstone is still just chaos as the
name suggests – but this is a remake from CE. The best map is without a doubt
Coagulation – which is a remake of Blood Gulch from CE. Blood Gulch is the
De_Dust2 of Halo, that’s unquestionable in how much it has stood the test of
time across games. Thought I do wonder if it would hold up in Halo Infinite
with the new mechanics.
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| My poor needlers what did they do... |
I’ve absolutely missed the boat on this one – every match
has me stomped by sweaties with hundreds of hours practice. This becomes even more
apparent when you play the Anniversary edition – which has far more fresh
blood, compared to the hardcore purists that have stuck to Halo 2 and 3. There’s
been a welcome makeover to gameplay; shooting feels smoother with
quality-of-life features such as hit markers, weapon markers, etc. Also the
sound design is so much better and more impactful – it might not sound like
much but the DMR, sadly the weapon everyone uses, just sounds limp. I love
every single map in this mode. Stonetown (a remake of Zanzibar) is a fan
favourite. Bloodline (Bloodgulch) is as great as it ever was and has some
welcome adjustments like bases being scalable in multiple ways and a bunker in
the centre of the map, making it far more viable then the sniper bait that it
was in previous iterations. I had a lot of fun with Remnant (Relic) too which
I’ve never played before. Set on an island, the vantage point is in the centre
of the island with several safe spots dotted on the outside. Teams will be
naturally fighting for this centre point, which provides a fresh dynamic and
way to play compared to the base vs base of Blood gulch or maps with no fixed
base and rotating maps.
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| It's back baby. |
The game is beautiful to look at to boot – hats off to 343 here I enjoyed this far more than the base game. It was a faithful remake. The graphics and art design look so damn great. I don’t remember the last time I played a multiplayer game that stopped in my tracks as I stared at the beautiful backdrops, risking life and limb each time. Beautiful waves hitting the shore met by a Halo Ring on the horizon is just breathtaking…
Halo 3
Like Halo 2 I enjoyed this one the most outside of nostalgia factor (Halo CE is fun but issues with sniping and a side-arm becoming default primary is clear). However, I feel like I would need to spend a lot of time, like minimum 50-100 hours sucking at this game before I get good. PC MCC is full of sweaties and aim assist hardcore players that have been playing for years. And while I can occasionally hold my own, I definitely missed the boat on this one as I have no interest investing that much into this masterpiece now. Especially when you compare the two and the fact that Halo 3 is outdated, Infinite is so much more fun to play.
Halo 1 and 2 certainly had its issues with weapons – the magnum in 1, the power sword in 2 or the snipers in both are the most memorable examples. Well 3 is night perfect. The sniper is still an issue imo but everything else just feels right. It all synergises to the point that a player has no excuses when they die, they can’t blame an unbalanced weapon, pay-to-win, play-to-win (i.e. loadouts or loot) or bad map design. The gunplay is just as it should be – no sprint, no abilities, high time to kill, headshots and nades are king. Map control, awareness and grenades separate the wheat from the chaff. This was made all the more clear when I played with my friends frustrations. Snipers on PC have no recoil, it’s clear they weren’t designed with PC in mind (originally being a 360 exclusive). The game is still full of the most hardcore players, so anyone new is going to have a bad time. DMR still dominates. I’m convinced any Halo game dominated by DMRs I just will not enjoy as much – sadly this is the entire Master Chief collection. The Brute Spike is meh, but the Carbine, Brute Shot, Beam Rifle, Gravity Hammer are all sick new additions to the weapon roster. The spartan laser, I love this charge up weapon. Juxtaposed to the rocket launch, the lead is after you fire, here the lead is before with a long charge up. If you hit decimates anything it touches instantly. Bring it back for future games please! Maps are great, especially Sandtrap, Sand Trap and Avalanche with its wide snowy valley on a mountainside, Valhalla a spiritual successor to Blood Gulch – which his fun but no where near as good as Bloodline in Halo 2 Anniversary. Finally Sandtrap is phenomenal with a bunch of sand movers on treads. Several players can pilot these giant vehicles and even battle on it, leading to some fantastic moments. Considering how high regard Halo 3 is held in, there are probably others but I wouldn’t know because that’s all anyone played.
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| Sandtrap might be the largest Halo map. |
Halo 4
It’s just not Halo. Well, that’s not to say gameplay isn’t fun especially on open maps like Exile, Complex and Ragnarok – cluster fights are chaotic and Kinetic – exactly what you want from a shooter but it just doesn’t feel authentic. This is most clear on non-vehicle maps that often feel like casual shooters and one side gets murdered in their spawn. It’s a bore in the end and I removed it from the rotation. But the most part maps just feel like uninspired clusterfucks, there’s little notable or memorable about them. I even remember the bad maps from Halo like Tombstone, because there was something interesting that set them apart. Like the Tombstone corcrete pillars that gave you a tiny bit of cover but would more than likely mean death from a sniper. Some of them feel liks training levels or shooting ranges in a title like Titanfall. They’re just bland. The gunplay is still Halo, time to kill, shields, nade placements, emphasis on headshots, jumping, duking, weapon choice. It’s all here, and that’s most apparent when you are constantly hearing a “chh chh chh chh chh” noise. Yup, DMRs are still king. The maps feel more more intimate and as a result you can hear everyone shooting. Even the smaller maps on previous games I don’t remember shooting being this prominent. As a result, you get the constant DMR burst firing the somehow sounds words then the flat sound effect from the original games. Like a $2 off brand version – it’s hard to describe but it just sounds off – and you’ll be hearing it A LOT.
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| Once a DMR fest, always a DMR fest... |
At least the you have the BR pistol start again… oh wait never mind that’s just the default.. loadout? Wait a minute that’s not Halo, that’s no an arena shooter. Wait you can unlock new abilities like jetpacks and wall jacks, perks and you even get kill streaks? This isn’t Halo. Halo isn’t about what you bring to the table. I’m all for games innovating but this completely misunderstands the core of what Halo is. It’s everyone on the same equal footing, where skill, strategy and team coherency dominate. Not what you bring to the table or the amount of time you’ve spent with the game. The Forerunner weapons are okay but still just eh, they have this generic sci-fi feeling to them. But I suppose that is Halo, which has always been a facelift of great sci fi, with excellent execution. I do like the animations, how the break together like they’re held together by anti-gravity, just not the aesthetic. Even if the setting of Halo was generic, the weapons were ot. Needlers, plasma, even the human weapons had this bulky industrial look to them I hadn’t seen before. The magnum had a weird curvature, its design, clearly only fit for a Spartan to handle. Halo 4 attempts to innovate in all the wrong ways, I complete misdirection for the series by chasing trends. I can see why so many hated this. Unlike Halo 2 or Halo CE I don’t ever see myself feeling an itch for this one
Halo 5
this isn't in the collection and I think that says all you
need to know. The game seems like a natural progression of 4, building upon
it’s changes including feedback of criticism. While slightly improved overall
it still seems to be on the same casual path of Halo 4. An attempt at
compromise for this new direction, which would never work considering the new
direction is fundamentally incorrect.
Halo Multiplayer: Summary on the Franchise
I think the absence of Forge Mode hurts the MCC in a major
way. From what I’ve seen this added a lot of fun replayability to Halo 3 and extended
the life time of that game for dozens of hours for a lot of people. Perhaps I
would have enjoyed 3 more in these maps.
Character customization has never been a big priority for
me, I always used the default skins in CSGO. However the customization is nuts
for Reach, 3 and 4. Spartans with swords and shields with arrows jutting from
them. Disappointing that Infinite feels like such a reduction – at base has the
same level of customization as Halo 2 requiring you to grind for anything more.
I had a lot of fun with every MCC game to different degree
but its clearly outdated at this point. The fun factor I had with the Halo
Franchise is as follows:
Infinite > 2 Anniversary > CE > 3 > Reach > 2
> 4
I have no doubt that 3 is better then 2 and CE, maybe even Infinite for it’s time. But not it’s full of hardcore sweaties and aim assist, it’s nigh impossible for a newbie to get into. Halo 2 Anniversary with it’s updated shooting but classic formula was the most fun to play for sure. I’ll be returning to Halo 2 Anniversary for that competitive classic Halo, while I’ll be sure to hit up Halo CE for that nostalgia dose every now and again. But Halo Infinite is the new king, one I’ll be keeping my eye on moving forward.
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