Halo CE/Anniversary: Most Favorite; The Two Betrayals - Those enormous areas to battle, combined with air vehicles, hunters, scorpions, flood, it was an overload of the Halo senses in the best possible way!
Least Favorite; The Truth and Reconciliation - This level starts out amazing- the stealth tactics with the sniper rifle… The infiltration of the covenant ship via its own gravitation systems… But after the wow of the first engagement with golden elites and the nerves from the second hunter engagement subside… That’s it for this level- you’re left with a long, boring, and repetitive level chaulk-full of the same type of small-unit engagements with the covenant again and again and again as you head up floor after floor of the ship… As climactic as it began to valiantly search for your captured Captain, this level completely lost me in boredom whilst aboard the T&R… I still remember this level as one that takes some of the steam out of the sails after the first few fantastic levels in Halo CE.
Halo 2/Anniversary: Most Favorite; High Charity - Maybe I like this one so much because I once held the Legendary speed record for it… Maybe it’s because of the teary goodbye exchanged between Chief and Cortana… Maybe it’s because it’s an extremely quick, run and gun level that still sets the player into the mix of larger-than-life battles taking place between different foes as you make your way up… I also have a tendency to like to go “up,” for some reason- like heading straight to the top of a castle to victory, this level really always had me excited to beat it. To be fair, there are TONS of fantastic levels in Halo 2 that I could pick- Metropolis and The Great Journey come to mind straight away- Uprising was great too, for throwing players into the heart of the Covenant Civil War. Also who didn’t love Delta Halo??
Least Favorite; Quarantine Zone - Confusing objectives and difficulty knowing even where to go- this level loses steam in a big way in Halo 2.
Halo 3: Most Favorite; The Covenant - Yeah, who didn’t love witnessing the Arbiter silence the voice of the Covenant with his blade?? I know it’s just a video game but it almost felt like witnessing a piece of history in a strange sort of video game way… In any case this level had an epic build up and epic finish that was both memorable and iconic.
Least Favorite; Halo - Now let me preface with one thing- I found Halo 3’s campaign to be the best in scale, graphics, and cutscenes… (Overall I like Halo 2’s campaign a little better but 3 is a close second) There are only a couple levels total and each one seems to have its own strengths (and weaknesses for some). Cortana is a bit off par in terms of replay-ability compared to the others but linking back up with your solid blue companion by wrenching her away from the grip of the Gravemind was fantastic and never gets old. That said, Halo starts out fantastic- the uphill battle against wave after wave of flood with SGM Johnson by your side delivering the pain train with the Splaser is pretty awesome. And, sad as it was to see him go- SGM Johnson’s sacrifice and bravery on his way out was also just as memorable. But to essentially copy and paste the same “Warthog race” ending from Halo CE was unoriginal and lazy. I remember playing it thinking “Are you kidding me? This again??”
ODST: Most Favorite; ONI Alpha Site - Because who doesn’t like blowing stuff up?? You get to blow up a LOT of stuff here, taking a LOT of Covenant with it…
Least Favorite; The Streets - The streets of New Mombasa were fantastic… They were haunted- patrolled by Covenant monsters that occupied the city that were responsible for wreaking absolute havoc just hours earlier- with evidence in the form of bodies, blood, and haunted messages thrown across the walls of the buildings… The Streets were a stunning reminder of the true barbarity of the Covenant. That said, they just got old and repetitive real fast. It was a great idea but the final product was executed a little sub-par- there was way too much running around feeling lost in the never-ending charade of small-unit engagements in those streets. And too much distance between objectives when it became clear that the streets held zero plot progression.
Reach: Most Favorite; Tip of the Spear - Massive scale… Massive engagements… And this level had me feeling that the stakes were massive- I really liked this level and it still stands out above a bunch of mediocrity in Reach. (Those cutscenes were amazing too and really helped set the pace of this up-tempo level).
Least Favorite; Lone Wolf - How was this even a level? Okay, got it… You have to come to grips with the fact that your character is going to die in defense of Reach- but this was a crappy way to send Noble 6 out. I still feel like I had that battle anyway…
Halo 4: Most Favorite; Reclaimer - Because “Skip,” “Skip,” “Skip,” that’s why! This may be the only level in any Halo game that beat SLASO with zero shots fired. Skips on Legendary and LASO were some of my favorite memories of Halo 4’s campaign.
Least Favorite; Dawn - What a slow way to open up a Halo game… Other than Cortana’s extremely… Aesthetically pleasing new look (to be polite), there wasn’t much here that even felt like a Halo game. This level was anti-climactic for me after all the hype and build up around Halo 4.
Halo 5: Most Favorite; The Battle of Sunion - Because the Arbiter is just awesome- getting to fight alongside of him once again felt like old times (even though it was sadly very brief).
Least Favorite; Meridian Station- every talking mission was boring but this was the longest one and therefore the most boring of them all… This was the single most boring Halo level that I have ever played.
Summary: There are a lot of great levels to pick from… It was harder to pick a favorite level in CE, 2, and 3, because there were so many fantastic memories from so many levels in between… In Reach, 4, and even 5 it sort of flips- there are only a few notable highlights with mediocrity and poor execution spread throughout. I’ll still take mediocre Halo over no Halo- I still liked 4 & 5 for instance I just think those campaigns could have been executed so much better.
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