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Halo |OT 20| It really does feel like Halo

343i and Microsoft seem to be pushing Halo into a Transmedia brand more and more with Forward Unto Dawn, Nightfall. Various Comics and Book series and smaller scale games like Spartan Assault and Spartan Strike. Which is great, Halo has always had this scope and potential to expand beyond just a game series. It might not be the greatest story ever told but it's good pulpy Sci Fi.

All that said it brings me to my first problem, Which may not be the biggest concern for most but playing Halo 1 to 4 in succession highlights it for me. There is a distinct lack of aesthetic cohesion between titles, It's obvious why this is, Various artists have worked on the series in the past and each has brought a new flavor to the table. However MCC seems like it would have been perfect if they just settled on an art style and changed up some of the texture work stuff in the games so they looked more similar. The elites are a big problem from CE to H4 they radically differ. That's without mentioning the Grunts and Jackals.

It's almost a good thing that Reach and ODST didn't make it into the game because they present a very visibly different Mombasa and Spartan style than any other title.

I'd be fine with them retconning the aesthetics for more visual similarities.

Again a small complaint but something that irks me.

Now onto the real meaty stuff. MCC has launched in a very bad state and it's not really acceptable. I can understand having a 20gb day one patch. Some technical hurdles may have been the reason a 2nd disc couldn't be shipped.

Launching with Matchmaking unplayable is insane, Did this thing even get any testing in the real world? It's not just a little broken it's entirely unplayable for me. I couldn't get into for the first hour of tonight.

I played some H2A forge and the framedrops are horrible, How is this happening? Again I really question of much of this was tested by real people in the real world prior to launch and how they shipped a game that was all about being 1080p 60fps when it struggles to keep that standard during multiple different parts.

I did play a little custom on Lockdown with 3 other people and I did enjoy it but getting to that stage was a real ball ache.

So I put MP down, It's clearly in an unfit state I'll wait and see.

Halo 1 Anniversary looks great, really good. I personally liked Halo CE:A, The change to new aesthetics looked good, and in 1080p it's sharp and crisp. I've only played some of PoA and AotCR but I've already seen FPS drop. Is the Xbox One really that weak that it can't play games that performed well on the 360 at 1080p60fps?

I've had a great time with Halo 2 Anniversary so far, Halo CE was my first game but Halo 2 is what really cemented my interest in the series and I've played it possibly more than any game in my life. The attention to detail in the Anniversary graphics is pretty unreal and the lighting looks superb. I was having a great time admiring the frankly beautiful terrain of Delta Halo when suddenly the game just stopped. Just completely and utterly stopped. I know that this happens rarely with the Xbox One but It's never happened in Destiny.. or any other game since Forza 5. Did this never happen during development? Did no one think "oh maybe this will piss people off we better fix this"

I moved on and tried to play The Covenant on Halo 3 and the beach section has terrible framerate, just terrible. Again, No one noticed this? C'mon.

I played Halo 4, It looks really good, those cutscenes are incredible and I'm excited to see some of the great looking Spartan Ops locations like Cauldron. Again not even close to a rock solid 60fps and some noticeable fade in on objects.

I won't go too deeply into this but Customization is really barebones, No DLC armor for Halo 4, No Mixing and Matching. Only 3 armors for Halo 2 Anniversary MP. It's pretty shit, Especially when Spartan Ops is supposed to be Half "our story" and My avatar looks nothing like I want.

I've come to expect a better level of polish from Halo than this. It's the Xbox One flagship title and half of it isn't even playable and the half that is isn't painting the console in the best light.

Minor complaints for some people I know but I'm annoyed and this is a nice play to Vent.
 
So in terms of player customization:

-No matching various armor pieces
- No emblems on armor
- Mark V and ODST are missing from Halo 4 (again).
- It doesn't update the colors on your spartan and can only be seen in game.
-weapon customization on Halo 4 weapons is gone (oh noooo....)


Hope some of this stuff gets patched back in, as it's pretty lame how streamlined it got.
 

RowdyReverb

Member
It's really a testament to how good the game is that I've continued to play it all day in spite of all the difficulties and frustrations, as ridiculous as that sounds. The few matches I've completed successfully have been downright magical.
 

Ein Bear

Member
Achievements seem to have just straight up stopped unlocking for me now. Just played three campaign levels, along with collecting all the skulls/terminals in them, and haven't got anything.
 
Achievements seem to have just straight up stopped unlocking for me now. Just played three campaign levels, along with collecting all the skulls/terminals in them, and haven't got anything.
This isn't an exclusive problem to the MCC this happens in a lot of games, it's a result of having to be online for achievements it doesn't work half the time, it's awful.
 
So I'm watching Nightfall...

Apparently, part of the "Peace Treaty" [vague as hell], is that Alpha Halo pieces are off limits? Why is that?
When the other Halo's are being located, "decommissioned" (according to Lasky in Halo 4), scrapped for tech more like.

If anything, by being a Flood host, pieces of the rings required extreme supervision.

Oh, and the nebulous use of the term "the Covenant" still annoys me. I mean sure, after a 20 year war, you earn the right to be a bit of a jerk, but Locke and his crew are supposed to be best of the best tier, you'd think they'd be a bit more..

The acting, is real rough.
 
^I don't think it's just Alpha Halo, I think it's all of the Halos. Alpha Halo may be an oddity in the treaty since it is not 100% functional like the others and cannot fire.

Of course Halo 4 downloads first, the one I've most recently played.
 

TheXbox

Member
Can't say I'm upset to have missed out on this launch. Sounds pretty rough. I got the H2A soundtrack and that's all I need.

but I wanna play CE customs so baaaad
 

Madness

Member
Was a rank 2 now it randomly put me back down to one?

Lot of people are saying their ranks were reset. This is just a huge bungle of a launch. Even achievements have stopped working. Lobby is so glitchy. Having trouble joining parties or customs. Have now been searching for a Halo 2 Anniversary match for almost 27 minutes with 3 friends.
 

RoKKeR

Member
Perception of the game quickly turning on Gaming side, 343 not doing themselves any favors.

Also I like how in the "Playlist Stats" there is one open slot right down at the bottom of the box for "Playlist Population".

343 plz. I want to know how many people are playing Halo 3.

Also MM is fundamentally broken. Yet to get into a match that is A) Full and B) Even teams
 
^I don't think it's just Alpha Halo, I think it's all of the Halos. Alpha Halo may be an oddity in the treaty since it is not 100% functional like the others and cannot fire.
It is weird. Installation 03 looked far from off limits in 4.
To enforce that kind of think you'd need a joint peace keeping force at these things anyway.
They're weapons of galactic ruination, not something where you hope no one pops a key in the wrong hole while you weren't looking.

There's not much of a deterrent against a Halo ring.

This kind of arm chair sci-fi is why I'd love to pick the brains of the lore keepers.
 

Impala26

Member
^I don't think it's just Alpha Halo, I think it's all of the Halos. Alpha Halo may be an oddity in the treaty since it is not 100% functional like the others and cannot fire.

Of course Halo 4 downloads first, the one I've most recently played.

Same thing here with me last night. Even my fiancee was like, "umm, isn't H2A the centerpiece of this package?"

Based 343, lol
 
Like a lot of games on the Xbox One almost zero testing must have been done with a game going in standby or left running in the background as even though MM is broken if left running for a while in the background or resumed it won't work at all.

Back onto the game and it is so weird playing Halo now after playing other games but shows me even when it's not at its best I still enjoy it more than any other game. Just found my first game in H2A!

Is their team chat in the MCC or like Destiny and parties?
 

Takashi

Member
So I bought an Xbox One Sunday night so I could buy MCC digitally in order to spend Monday downloading the 20 gb update to be ready for launch. But my dumbass somehow wasn't thinking and forgot that buying digitally also includes downloading the whole damn game itself, so now I'm screwed for a while cause of my slow ass internet. Which I guess isn't that bad considering the matchmaking issues I'm just now learning about.


Just have a couple questions-

When I bought the game it said the download was roughly 60 gb. Does that include the patch or will that still come after?

I've hit the point where it says "Ready to start". If I start playing now, will it affect anything campaign-wise such as achievements?
 

Caja 117

Member
...you don't honestly believe that, right?
Given Custom are mostly working fine, it seems to be a server problem and how players conect to the server, hence why some people can get games easily while others cant find a game, this doesnt excuse 343 as of any Halo, this oneshouldve had a heavy Beta test
 

The Flash

Banned
So I bought an Xbox One Sunday night so I could buy MCC digitally in order to spend Monday downloading the 20 gb update to be ready for launch. But my dumbass somehow wasn't thinking and forgot that buying digitally also includes downloading the whole damn game itself, so now I'm screwed for a while cause of my slow ass internet. Which I guess isn't that bad considering the matchmaking issues I'm just now learning about.


Just have a couple questions-

When I bought the game it said the download was roughly 60 gb. Does that include the patch or will that still come after?

I've hit the point where it says "Ready to start". If I start playing now, will it affect anything campaign-wise such as achievements?

60gb is the game and the patch. You should be good to go.
 

klodeckel

Banned
...you don't honestly believe that, right?

What? God, some people ... Filled with pessimism and negativism. He was talking about achievements. I can not get any achievements -at all- in -any- game right now. How on earth can this be 343 fault?

The matchmaking, bugs, co-op disconnects and much more are probably problems on 343s end in combination with the XBL problems - but that wasn't even the topic.
 
So is Halo 3 in the MCC just a PC port?, cos that's what the movement feels like. It feels the same as playing halo CE pc with a controller.
 
Also, there's STILL no headshot stat in the post-game lobby ala Halo 4's UI

Also, after a game of Halo 3 I checked the medals earned and they were Halo 4 medals. I thought it was a bug at first but then I realised: Halo: The Master Chief Collection does not recognise Halo 2/3 medals on the overarching UI.

Also, I turned off vibration for all the games and it complied with all except Halo 3 which is bizarre.

Also, why does the menu music reside into the first few seconds of a match?

Also, you can't save ANY theatre film as far as I can fathom. Recording from within a temporarily saved film simply uploads it directly to the Game-DVR. Remember that hilarious clip in Reach where Tashi, Tawpgun and others jump in and out of a hog trying to escort the flag away? In MMC you'd have to go in theatre, set the desired angle, clip it and be done with it. You can't save the clip to watch from different perspectives in theatre at a later date. This will be damning for montage makers.

I hope 343 patch all of the above and the rest. I hope they're aggressive with the TU's. In four months time I don't want to hear that all the team's crunching hard preparing for Guardians and there just isn't the bandwidth or resources for all that old fuddy duddy MCC stuff. This is the collection for which I bought a console I didn't even want. I want MCC to be flawless through continuous refinement cause I plan on sticking with it beyond H5. H5 looks interesting but I can't see me dropping MCC for it long term.
 
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