Seriously, that’s the only word I can intellectually conjure that’d accurately describe CEA.
Coming into this, my hopes were at the bottom of the barrel. In fact, I wasn’t even sure if I was going to buy the game tonight, mentally debating with myself whether to purchase this or Revelations. Reach simply left a bad taste in my mouth, one of which, no matter how studious I tried, I couldn’t remove. However, after playing just the first two levels, I can’t begin to explain how glad I am I purchased this over Assassin’s Creed (although it’s a great series in it’s own right.)
The handoff between Bungie and 343i couldn’t have happened any better. The graphics in this game are great, even on my shoddy 720p HDTV. All the characters looked great, although admittingly, Johnson looked somewhat chubby lol. The scenery on both the Pillar of Autumn and Halo are fantastic, with the backgrounds catching my eyes more often than not. And I don’t know if it’s even possible (due to using practically the exact same engine), but the campaign seems to be even more difficult on legendary than the original CE (which is a very, very good thing to me; nothing worse than being able to faceroll through a game). Although it’s clearly a reskinned remake of the original, you can tell that 343 added touches of their own.
I haven’t tried to play multiplayer yet (I actually haven’t owned Reach for several months, so I’ve barely played anything since the TU), but if it’s as great as what I’ve played of the campaign, I’m certainly not going to be disappointed.
Congratulations 343i, for making me jubilant and excited for two games (CEA and 4) that, before today, I was almost dismissing. This game has brought back the Halo spirit that has been missing in me since 2009.
