Update: Halo Studios was destroyed. I feel awkward about just going all in depth on this game now, and frankly it’s depressing when you consider this was the first and final project they worked on. I hate to see things go down like this and people lose their jobs. I’m going to give my rating off the top, but include everything I wrote about the game anyways previously below
Some may take issue with how I review Halo CE3. I am considering this game as the whole package. Campaign, the bonus missions, additional features, and the context of its release. Were I to just review the main game, sure maybe it would be a higher rating, but I think the entire scope of this game is important. It informs buyer decisions and player opinions. There is a lot of surrounding history, context, and cultural conditions that made the original game what it was. Things we are quick to flatten in our memory.
With that said, as a reviewer: I played Halo CE on the OG Xbox A LOT. The only Bungie campaign I played more than it was Halo 2. I also played it from an early age (6 years old or so). In the 343 era of games, I disliked a lot about Halo 4 and 5. I may have never played Halo Infinite had I not been brought back to Halo by a friend. While I hold very strong boomer opinions about the franchise, I did overall enjoy Infinite and I’m far from a chudposter. Biases are unavoidable, I think mine is pretty easy to understand. Now you ready to get to it?
The Game Itself
When it comes to Halo CE, I think for the time it’s undeniably 5 bananas. It is foundational and unshackled by the weight of previous installments. The first entry to any franchise has a massive buff in that way. The core themes of gameplay and story get a chance to be expressed for the first time. I can imagine the pressures at that time were more on deadlines than the art itself.
Can the remake say the same?
Art
While the UNSC and outside environments are really good in this game, the forerunner truly rubbed me the wrong way. There are much better critiques out there from keener eyes, but suffice to say it looked like visual lasagna touched by a chrome Midas.
It is my primary complain about the artstyle. I don’t really understand why this decision was made when forerunner is a pretty established style already. The greebling is off the charts man. There are plenty of examples of intricate designs in forerunner, but I’d say they felt more framed, like mosaics in a cathedral.
This is a huge topic of criticism for a reason. When we consider enhanced graphics were the main value proposition, getting forerunner wrong is terrible for this game.
I’ve also seen some critiques of flood design, namely about the glowy orange bits and lighting that they have. I saw some overly bright orange lights on occasion, but for me personally I was pretty pleased with the flood design.
I feel pretty similarly about the covenant with two exceptions. I really don’t like the sword, its just very strange looking for Halo and quite distracting. And I’m not the biggest fan of the designs on the elites. In particular the officers, ultras, and zealots. Spec ops and minor armor are pretty slick, what I’d prefer is slight variations on the stingray looking ahh elites. I don’t like the designs in Reach and Infinite, and they look kind of like a cross over of those two
Gameplay
I played this game on a mix of legendary, heroic, coop and single player. It feels pretty Halo, and 4 player coop is such a great addition to CE.
But while it feels Halo, I don’t think it feels very CE. It’s built on Reach Blam!, and I think for anyone who has played both games, it’s pretty obvious in a lot of interactions. Is that a bad thing? It depends on how autistic you are about it, and I’m not officially diagnosed but….
The AI
I don’t think the AI is very good. People are quick to blame that on Reach having bad AI, but I wouldn’t agree. Reach’s AI was built around Reach’s sandbox and level design(which was notably more open), and in CE3, it doesn’t feel like they were tailored as well to the levels or even rigged up properly. They fixed the jackal shield bug, which was maybe the worst bug in the game. There’s also all the areas tank flood forms can’t fit through/get up to that all the other enemies can. Bugs aside, the AI seems dumber and they threw so many more on the levels. In flood levels I found myself training like it’s COD zombies, and jumping up on platforms to get away. I’ve heard a few recommendations to turn on certain skulls that modify them to be better, but so far haven’t tried. I’m guessing there wasn’t enough time or resources to get the AI acquainted with it’s new home, and so the result feels kinda like an Infinite forge campaign.
I think the elites are what I’ve been most disappointed with. They evade a bit, but otherwise seem to stand around, have odd animations, and have lost a lot of the charm CE elites used to have.
Sandbox
Getting to use a plasma rifle and plasma pistol that fuck is so nice. Halo CE plasma weapons and needler were always my favorite in the entire franchise. However I’m pretty sad to have lost those blue needles…
There was a patch for the AR being a laser, and it’s a lot better. Probably closer now to Reach than Infinite. But it still plays like a totally different weapon at medium range, probably due to ADS which skews everything to longer ranges. On the other hand, I really like the magnum. I prefer the older sound, but I think it feels good in this game.
I don’t treat CE as sacred text per se, but I do have to admit some of their weapon choices are a little strange. Beam rifle, needle rifle, and SMG? FRG, energy sword, and sentinel beam felt like natural extensions, but the other three feel strange. I really don’t like the SMG much in this incarnation. It’s not unique really just a smaller shittier AR I guess? Normally what makes it it’s own weapon is dual wielding or something like silencer and scope of ODST. The beam rifle is probably the least strange, the needle rifle on the other hand is pretty much a power weapon. I don’t know if they were trying to fit some particular formula they established with Infinite? But if we are going to get cute and add a needle rifle, then where is the damn grenade launcher?!
Also I miss this super soaker look for the FRG I wont lie. Losing out on a flamethrower is also pretty sad. Could’ve popped that bad boy into The Library
Bonus Missions
I’m honestly pretty confused by these missions. They’re kinda incongruent with Halo lore, or anything pertaining to Halo CE. When I first loaded up Halo CE3 these are what I played first, since they were new levels to try out, and I felt like I was in some bizarro world H2 mission.
– The moment Williams opened her mouth I was pissed off.
– The brutes were only blue and their hats don’t come off.
– Why is Johnson so smug and marvely. It’s like theyre trying to do a deadpool
– The prophet of eugenics was kind of interesting but his dialogue and cutscenes are so atrocious.
There were a couple rooms and encounters I enjoyed, the new faction was interesting and the artstyle was cool. I’ve heard some complaints that it was a slog. I personally enjoyed when playing the game, it did remind me of fighting in High Charity, but they do lay the enemies on THICK.
The problem is I don’t understand why I should care about these missions. It felt like they hadn’t intended for this to ship with CE3 at all, it may have been another project they were working on that they scrapped. At which point they decided to combine it as another offering for CE3.
This may as well have been a mod, like New Covenant or something. In my earnest apanion these missions shouldn’t exist, with some of the retcons, awkwardness, and bleh they brought to the universe. It is kind of a luhmao that h4 and h5 fuckass covenant enemy models are genetic mutants now.
User Experience
I had a few crashes, some issues with connectivity, but was overall able to play the game without issues. Handholding and “yellow paint” was incredibly annoying, performance was not great, and I spent a decent amount of time tweaking and downloading mods to help.
UI
I wasn’t particularly impressed by the main menu UI. It’s serviceable but doesn’t have very much character. Not horrible side scroll menus like Infinite or anything though.
The UI clutter, however, is pretty aggressive. There are all kinds of nav markers that maybe would’ve made sense if you got stuck, or if you were playing on easy/normal. But on heroic/legendary it’s incredibly annoying. Cortana talks a lot of “hey MC, make sure you” slop. There’s also persistent keybindings for each action on your screen? Luckily you can mod this stuff away. I’m not even gonna pretend, this is my ideal HUD:
It looks good in this game too.
Performance
My specs were basically the recommendation for medium settings for 1440p, but I really struggled to hold consistent 60fps. There were severe stutters and many areas felt quite bad. Despite many tweaks and adjustments I couldn’t fix the input latency. My PC is pretty mid tier and so that was incredibly disappointing. Sometimes it felt like I was playing super greened out where I cant feel my hands, you know the feeling.
Where’s my diet dr kelp?
Okay so it’s campaign only, then where are the accoutrements? Sauce? Garnish? Anything to keep me playing this game or even features that existed in previous campaigns?
I’m not going to pretend this game would’ve been vastly improved by campaign scoring, theater mode, or something like campaign matchmaking (xoxo Reach), but it would’ve been nice. It looks like somehow a guy made a mod for scoring. There’s no replacement for dev made on this though, and I don’t really see what the point would be without online leaderboards natively. I actually often played with scoring on and enjoyed trying to beat par scores or challenges in previous games. These things were clearly cut or not pursued for a rushed release.
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