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[Fess]

Halo CE isn't some untouchable masterpiece. It's got a ton of problems (pacing, repetitiveness, areas of poor level design, etc.. etc..).

It's held on a pedestal now but there's lots of room for improvement.

I played through a demo on OG Xbox in 30 minutes, didn't impress me, got nauseous, walked away, never touched it again. So no pedestal here, never been my thing.

In general I don't like Halo but I definitely liked the story and more cinematic experience and the bond between Cortana and Master Chief in Halo 4. It was great!

Could possibly see myself try this remaster on Gamepass to learn the origin story, if it reviews well.

I obviously have no nostalgia so changes is no problem at all for me. Looking at videos just makes me wonder why they went with that vehicle control? Is there a reason why it's accepted that it's awful?

Why not throw in some Forza Horizon controls? The gunner can be up there doing his own thing either way.

 

[DirtInUrEye]

so wait what.. they put an ammo counter on top of an ammo counter with the needler gun?

are they friggin morons?

Always trying to make Halo to CoD players, even now. It'll never happen.

 

[GHG]

If I were PlayStation I'd hire these Bungie devs back to help steer Destiny 2 back on track.

It's beyond repair, just let it die instead of wasting valuable resources on it.

 

[FireFly]

Exactly. It was a decent SP, but it was never great. Pretty much every big/popular FPS in the 90s did level design and general campaign far, far better than Halo. It didn't bring anything new to the table, besides a great MP.

But even MP. I preferred Unreal, Quake, and Wolfenstein.

Before Halo, standard enemies were just cannon fodder you would mow down in between health pickups. By introducing shields, and giving those same shields to your enemies, each encounter could push you to your absolute limit. Throw in grenades and melee, and you have the "30 seconds of fun" that defines the series and had no equivalent on PC at the time. (In 2001 we had RTCW, Red Faction and AVP2 that were great games in their own right but adhered to a completely different style).

I suspect skepticism about Halo comes from playing on the Normal rather than Heroic or Legendary difficulties, where Normal is pretty much the easy mode for other games.

 

[Panajev2001a]

The Silent Cartographer is one of those rare levels in video games where, frankly, there's not much worth changing. I agree with leaving the rocks in place to force the on-foot encounter with the Hunters. With that said, the overall Campaign is definitely not perfect. When it's working, it fucking works, but there's more than a few areas that could use a re-design. "Backwards at night" is a meme for a reason.

Somehow I think 343i is not going to make the low points better but the other way around…

 

[Shubh_C63]

People shouldn't be surprised. 343/HaloStudios don't know how to make a 'Fun' game.

Even remastering something takes some sort of talent.

 

[MrTroubleMaker]

"oh no they changed stuff I worked on"

Who is Hailey?

some guy pretending to be female on the internet, he worked on a fan made project "Open Marble Blast Universe"
"A definitive, verified photograph of HaileyEira that is not AI-generated does not appear to be publicly available"

 

[Radical_3d]

Exactly. It was a decent SP, but it was never great. Pretty much every big/popular FPS in the 90s did level design and general campaign far, far better than Halo. It didn't bring anything new to the table, besides a great MP.

Until 2001 if I wanted to throw a grenade I had to open the weapon menu, scroll all the way to grenades, select the one I want, push enter, maybe push "9" if you're lucky and has that kind of shortcut but wasn't the norm, then once equipped you're ready to throw it by firing, so you press "continue since the last checkpoint" because by the time you've finished you're fucking dead.

Same with the melee option, that is equip fist. Halo revolutionized FPS with its holy trinity of shoot, grenade and melee all perfectly integrated in the gunplay. They also introduced regenerating health bars in the genre. So basically defined how you bloody play FPS forever. The systems that they are introduced are the standards of nowadays. They also had enemies that aren't fucking morons. Bungie kicked the fucking door down and nobody was ready for the amount of innovations they cramped all in one game.

But sure, mid campaign...

Edit: fucking hell, F FireFly already said all this.

 

[Ellis]

Until 2001 if I wanted to throw a grenade I had to open the weapon menu, scroll all the way to grenades, select the one I want, push enter, maybe push "9" if you're lucky and has that kind of shortcut but wasn't the norm, then once equipped you're ready to throw it by firing, so you press "continue since the last checkpoint" because by the time you've finished you're fucking dead.

Same with the melee option, that is equip fist. Halo revolutionized FPS with its holy trinity of shoot, grenade and melee all perfectly integrated in the gunplay. They also introduced regenerating health bars in the genre. So basically defined how you bloody play FPS forever. The systems that they are introduced are the standards of nowadays. They also had enemies that aren't fucking morons. Bungie kicked the fucking door down and nobody was ready for the amount of innovations they cramped all in one game.

But sure, mid campaign...

Edit: fucking hell, F FireFly already said all this.

See, now I get exactly what you're saying, but it made no difference to me. I have far fonder memories playing games like DOOM, Quake, Duke3D, GoldenEye, MoH, RtCW, HL, Time Splitters etc. than I ever did with Halo.

 

[Hudo]

I think the real reason why this exists is that porting the MCC to PS5 was just a clusterfuck because of the code base and using UE5 was the easiest solution. And using UE5 on a "safe project" like this also meant that the team could train itself on UE5 without having to think to hard about making a new game from scratch. I still think the MCC is the better remaster/remake of Halo 1 and 2.

 

[Radical_3d]

See, now I get exactly what you're saying, but it made no difference to me. I have far fonder memories playing games like DOOM, Quake, Duke3D, GoldenEye, MoH, RtCW, HL, Time Splitters etc. than I ever did with Halo.

I can see that, since most of those games are masterpieces. But to me, aside from Doom, most of those games were more about the vibes and atmosphere than the gun play. Yes, HL felt a little better to aim than Doom, but the action never thrilled me. I wasn't there day 1 for Halo. Like the rest of the planet I didn't bought an OG Xbox. By the time my MS whore friend bought one all this were old news and we were knees deep into the next generation rumors.

It still felt fresh. It was awesome. It is awesome, and I'm still addicted to that game loop. That's why I was baited into Destiny 1 & 2 even if they were nowhere near the same thing (Reach wasn't as well, it's clearly a Destiny alpha with bullet sponges enemies).

 

[Gonzito]

After Halo 2A, Saber Interactive should have gotten another chance to update Halo CE in MCC anniversary graphics. Until then Halo CE classic mode is the way to play. I hope 343i's next game fails so hard they are forced to sell the Halo IP.

Holy shit

 

[balls of snow]

Yeah the hunters battle was memorable because 1) it was a new type and 2) you had to fight 2 at once. Prior to that Chief was just steamrolling through grunts and elites.

 

[ShakenG]

Definitely not a fan of the added sprint.

 

[Signalis]

TL;DR - The Halo: CE remake by Halo Studios has fundamental design changes that one of the key developers of the original game isn't happy about. Namely, they both removed and added things that ruined immersion, and they don't appear to have a clear vision on what they wanted out of the remake.

His complaints just from The Silent Cartographer gameplay footage alone:

• You aren't supposed to be able to take the Warthog up to steamroll the Hunters. I intentionally placed rocks in the way so you had to fight them on foot. When you can just smash the crates out of the way it wrecks the encounters.
  • On further analysis I'm sure it's because the vehicles take damage and so you're just as likely to destroy the hog as get it over the rocks. If anything that makes it -worse- because -none- of the vehicle tricks are going to work anymore.
  • Most people forced the Warthog through BECAUSE of the Hunters. The introduction of the Hunters was supposed to be intimidating and difficult, but in the light so you can understand them. Then you meet them in an enclosed dark area and they are even harder. But then you get Rockets and Vehicles and turn the tables. It's a three act play of enemy design and you want to throw it in a blender. Fine, it'll go down easier but it's not going to taste as good.
• They put trees in the landing area of the WooHoo Jump. Lame. There's a ramp that is supposed to have a bunch of jackals at the landing spot. Your gunner would always say 'Woohoo!' When you got airborne.
• It's like the dance remix of a classic song that skips the intro and the bridge and just thumps the chorus over and over.
• If the world isn't scaled to sprint, you will be able to trivially skip encounters.
• By far the most comically unnecessary embellishment in the whole announcement. I'm not sure it isn't intentional satire. But why would you add an ammo counter to a weapon that IS an ammo counter in the first place?
  • NOTE: This is in regard to the Needler having a HUD that shows your ammo count when the Needler was designed to not need that since you can clearly see the ammo sticking out of the top of the gun.
• I think there are dozens of changes (reload speeds, no health packs, falling damage, etc) that make the game 'slicker' but ultimately less interesting.
• Halo is of its time, maybe more than any other game franchise. So they are constantly trying to either take Halo out of 2001 and modernize it (which breaks it) or take players back to 2001 with nostalgia (which is impossible).

Good old AI slop

 

[Valonquar]

For full on cringe, they could remaster Rooster Teeth's Red vs Blue series in the new engine too.

 

[ozz ex machina]

If I were PlayStation I'd hire these Bungie devs back to help steer Destiny 2 back on track.

This is just nostalgia insanity.

Halo was a great game for its time. The industry has moved on and I guarantee you most of those devs are completely out of touch and unable to innovate. These people would be no help fixing other games lol.

This remake looks fine btw. Those things the original dev is complaining about - are things a bitter mind looks for when they spent a lot of time making the original. Nothing there seemed remotely of importance to the player experience and it was criticism for criticisim sake. He's welcome to it but anyone flipping out over it like this is some damning feedback is off their trolly.