"The Master Chief Collection" - A Compilation of Halo Identity…
Lost Through Time (and a few things that should be in Halo 6 but won’t)
Exploring… the things that propped Halo up as the staple of console shooters in the early 2000s and the decline of a great franchise.
In this Topic, I will form a list of things that identified Halo with greatness and a list of things where they got wrong. I will only touch on the things that were most important to me in relation to Multiplayer, so this is a topic of opinions which “I think” are facts.
My quick background…
So I have been MIA for quite some time because I had lost motivation to play Halo 5, but recently bought the MCC (thanks to twitch.tv/Naded for getting back to the Halo streams and waking up my itch for Halo). I started playing Halo my freshman year of college in 2001 when I would use split screen to practice and became one of the most consistent 3-shots on campus, then I had a very consistent 4-shot and a good snipe in Halo 2. (I pretty much suck now though due to a combination of things like my trigger hand gets sore, hardware changes, and I haven’t played in a while also because my hand gets sore.)
Anyway, to the point…
(again, I will only touch on Multiplayer -the fun parts-, not including maps, and many of the good things I will mention were unintentional by design)
(also, I am using the “Original” release builds of the games where most of my experience is from)
Disclaimer: I might get a game mechanic wrong… sorry
“from the perspective of a typical casual, semi-hardcore gamer (which I think is most people) who likes fun times and balanced gameplay”
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The Good:
----- HCE Default Player Movement -----
This was set slower in Halo 2 I think, and definitely Halo 3, maybe because of a few things like Vehicle benefits or weapon sandbox. It just felt right in HCE and allowed a player to help the team if there wasn’t a vehicle available to progress the map, and sprint was not needed.
----- Crouch Jumping or Momentum Jumping -----
I think both of these are in most Halos. They present a learning curve to access shortcuts to parts of the map. And, players had trouble making some jumps without knowing that skill. I think the newer controller sticks don’t do crouching as well, but may be just me.
----- HCE Reloading Skip Animation -----
This also presented a learning curve that gave players an advantage but easy to learn. As soon as the clip was placed in the gun you could weapon flip and get off next shot quicker. It felt so good. I have no idea why it got removed in the next sequels.
----- HCE Rocket Jumping -----
This was another learning curve (and a gimmick) and one that presented a risk/reward. This one is tricky though because you must not allow the trick to break maps. I think it did come back in Halo 5.
----- HCE Bullet Spread = Rate of Fire -----
An example of this can be seen with the M6D Pistol where players who just spammed their trigger had a lower success rate against players who were patient with their pulse firing. The flexibility of fire rate also allowed a player a flexibility on which weapon to use at close quarters; it ultimately became a rock, paper, scissors from Halo 3 and on.
----- HCE Bullet Magnetism -----
This is where your bullets will hit the closest point of the body as long as the bullet is inside the reticule over the body. The thing about HCE was that with the M6D Pistol there was a learning curve with how you perform a 3-shot with success. Since there was bullet spread, if your reticule was aimed directly on the head, the bullet could actually hit below the head from lack of bullet magnetism. The best players learned to aim above the head for the final shot; this also helped to prevent height advantage because aiming above the head still counted consistently as a headshot even if you are on the bottom of the map, whereas in Halo 3 for example aiming toward the head at someone above you would most of the time cause many bullets to be missed.
----- HCE Fire Range and Zoom -----
It just feels better and allows larger maps to feel good. No offense, but even the post-patch Halo 2 BR makes Coagulation feel horrible. The DMR (maybe) and M6D always provided better versatility in gameplay.
----- Halo 2 Weapon Switch Speed -----
I’m a little indifferent on this one, but you must admit that flipping between weapons felt so good in Halo 2.
----- Halo 2’s Sniper -----
Halo 2, to this day, still has the best-feeling Sniper Rifle. It is because it has good bullet speed, weapon switching, zooming, and no-scoping abilities
----- HCE Frag Explosion -----
I just felt it had the right pop in the first Halo. Like, if someone got hit their shields were gone and it was consistent. The frag spam was real though. I had a problem with it in later Halos, like Halo 3.
----- HCE Vehicle Mechanics and Physics -----
The best formula to this day was the original where you could 1v1 someone in a vehicle and you weren’t confined to hiding. Not only that, the physics when ramping a vehicle or getting naded was awesome and hysterically balanced. Once they started messing with the original formula it spawned problems which then spawned other problems while they tried to fix the previous problems.
---- Multikill and Killing Spree names -----
I wish they never changed Killtacular to Overkill and a few others. Also, Unfreakenbelievable should have stayed for sure.
----- Aiming Smoothness in Halo 1-3 -----
It felt good.
----- Halo 2’s or Halo 3’s feel after a kill -----
It felt right.
(( that moment when I realize I wrote book instead pointing out just a few things ))
Ok, just going to end the good there and point out a few bad things
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The Bad:
----- Default Weak Weapon Starts in All Halos -----
No offense, but Halo’s identity is not AR or SMG starts (or Plasma Pistol starts like in HCE); its identity has always been you start with the most versatile weapon in the game with an easier-at-close-ranged weapon like the AR, and you try to control the power spawns with thy weapons. The fans never identified the game as focusing around trying to scramble for any weapon off the spawn; and that way is not balanced either.
----- Halo 2 Plasma Pistol Tracking -----
Was way too noob-friendly, same with sword.
----- Halo 3’s Melee Lunge -----
I always felt HCE had good Melees, where focus was put more on gun fights and Melee battles were fun as hell still. There was also the double-melee where both players died. Halo 2’s Melee was ok, but Halo 3 Melee put so much focus on just running at your target instead of trying to outgun your target.
----- Equipment and Special Abilities in Halo 3 and 4 -----
This specifically targeted at items that creates a pause in the player to player interaction. It was just better when you either won or lost a fight based on your positioning on the map and aiming skill, rather than gimmicks that you have in your pocket which slows the pace of engagement.
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Well that’s all I have on my mind of the things I believed had made Halo Halo, once upon a time.
Thanks. Feel free to comment, ignore, call me an idiot, or do what you do.
Regards.
~Septi