Why the ‘Halo’ Trilogy Isn’t That Good
When Halo: The Master Chief Collection finally dropped on PC, I was excited to finally get my hands on a piece of gaming history. I never owned an Xbox console, so this was the only way I was going to play the series. I waited until Halo: Combat Evolved released to get started, opting not to start with the first PC release, Halo Reach. Perhaps I went in with too high of expectations – after all, Halo is a series of legendary renown. Surely a classic such as this would be amazing even by today’s standards, despite me not normally being into first person shooter games. I wasn’t going to let the genre expectations bother me as I awoke on the Pillar of Autumn.
Upon launching the Master Chief Collection, I was greeted with a login menu for Xbox Live. I had never played on an Xbox console before, so this was frustrating to me that I have to deal with another login despite playing through Steam. Other companies are faced with bad press when forcing this kind of external login – EA with Origin in particular. Further mounting onto initial frustrations was the additional download for each campaign that needed to be done. For whatever reason, purchasing the game and installing through Steam does not install the game itself, just the menu interface, forcing me to wait while the game is installed while I was already in the game. This was not a great first impression, and I hadn’t even started the game yet.
I started my Halo journey on the Heroic difficulty, thinking that it would be the best way to play. After getting my bearings, I blasted my way through the first level without much difficulty. Soon after, however, I realized I was getting a bit overwhelmed by the tankiness of the Elite enemies. Perhaps it was my inexperience with first person shooter games in general, having difficulty scoring headshots. As a result, I decided to turn down the difficulty to Normal for the rest of my trilogy playthrough.
Halo: Combat Evolved takes a very arcade-like approach to level design. Linear corridors funneled me from one location to another without much in the way of worthwhile exploration. The aforementioned par time and scoring system introduced in the Master Chief Collection encouraged me to barrel through levels as quickly as possible. The same room types repeat themselves throughout the game, even going so far as to duplicate entire levels in the second half to save development time.
Oddly, despite the linear design, I found myself getting lost quite often. The lack of interesting landmarks or waypoint markers was enough to run into a plethora of dead ends, forcing me to retrace my steps constantly. Visually there were some great moments, such as the Halo ring in the background when I first arrived. Unfortunately, they were overshadowed by the abundance of generic hallways. This was amplified in levels such as the Library, which are made up entirely of tedious corridors.
There were multiple instances throughout the game where this was ground to a halt where I had to clear out waves of enemies before proceeding. These moments were where Halo struggled the most, as the base shooter gameplay has not aged all that gracefully. It’s standard fare at this point where shooters are a dime a dozen. A specific moment near the end of the game cemented this sub-par gameplay, where explosives were required to proceed. Cortana mentioned something about an armory where I could obtain a rocket launcher, but I couldn’t find it and ended up farming for grenades every time I missed a throw. From a pure gameplay perspective, the only thing Halo has going for it is its legendary pedigree.
Halo: Combat Evolved did have a couple of worthwhile moments despite the tedium with the rest of the game. About halfway through a tertiary party is revealed that aims to consume everything: the Flood. This adds a compelling narrative hook that the game was sorely lacking before that point. In addition, the ending sequence was utterly fantastic – an intense race to the finish through a collapsing structure was a perfect way to cap off the arcadey experience. I just wish the rest of the game was as satisfying to play as that one segment.
Upon starting Halo 2, I was greeted with unexpectedly gorgeous remastered cinematics detailing the start of a story I didn’t know I wanted. Seeing the point of view of the Covenant, the opposition from the first game, was a welcome addition to Halo. This story shift continued throughout the rest of the game, and was perhaps the one thing keeping me going. I actually cared about the plot and wanted to know what would happen to the Arbiter and the Covenant Council’s religious exploits.
Halo 2’s gameplay felt like a side step in comparison to 1. The level design felt familiar yet more sluggish when playing as Master Chief. The most significant new tool to Chief’s arsenal was the Battle Rifle, a weapon I was not personally very fond of. I never liked burst weapons in shooting games I’ve played, such as the Burst Assault Rifle in Fortnite or the Nozzlenose in Splatoon. In addition, an abundance of tankier enemies was placed throughout the game. Thus, the Battle Rifle became a necessary evil as it had a higher damage output compared to most of the other weapons in the game.
However, around half of the missions were played as the Arbiter instead of Master Chief. These levels were where the combat shined and became a real treat to play. Arbiter introduces a new stealth ability and comes pre-equipped with the new Energy Sword, a melee weapon that can kill almost anything in a single strike. What resulted was a complete shift from the dull shooter gameplay to something fresh and exciting, as I ran from room to room slaughtering anything in my path. This is what I felt an arcade-type of game should be – high intensity combat that is always moving and not putting up roadblocks in the form of durable opponents. Unfortunately, having actual fun gameplay half the time ruined any enjoyment I may have had when I was forced to switch back to Master Chief.
I knew going into Halo 2 that there was a cliffhanger ending of some kind, but I underestimated how bad it would be. There was a neat story beat in the Elites being cast out, but what followed was an extremely boring fight with the Brute leader as the Arbiter. There were no stealth elements, just an enemy that would not die and did not even want to approach me. He just stood there and let me shoot everything I had into him. As much as I liked playing as the Arbiter, it felt a bit awkward for the final mission of a Halo game to be played as someone other than Master Chief.
The ending cutscene cemented this final sequence – there was yet another important facility, the ‘Ark’, that would fire off the Halo rings, and Master Chief on a ship headed for Covenant confrontation. There were two cliffhangers in one, but all I felt was apathy that neither cliffhanger was worth getting excited about. Yet, I had high hopes that Halo 3 would take advantage of this cliffhanger and provide a satisfying conclusion.
By the time I reached Halo 3, I was used to the Master Chief Collection issues and trudged through the inconveniences getting it to launch. The opening scene established Master Chief’s return by crash landing back on Earth. This felt unexpectedly disappointing, as Halo 2’s cliffhanger seemed to establish that Chief was going directly towards a Covenant ship. Perhaps I’m simply ignorant in the Halo lore here. In an obvious twist, there is a portal to the Ark hinted at in the other cliffhanger on Earth, so the Arbiter returns as well. It also felt jarring seeing the cutscenes have a worse quality than in Halo 2, but that seems to be the result of it being remastered at a later date.
Adding the Arbiter serves the gameplay surprisingly well. Now, rather than fighting alone, I had an almost indestructible ally who was actually competent at combat. Encounters in previous games that would have been sluggish were suddenly a minor hurdle thanks to the Arbiter. I was forced to use the Battle Rifle more, but I didn’t mind it as much this time around. There were moments where I missed the Arbiter’s stealth-action gameplay from Halo 2, but overall I think I preferred having him as an ally instead.
The level design felt improved in some areas. There were no longer a bevy of forced generic encounters, instead replaced with gigantic boss machines that take a semblance of strategy to take down. The environments were easier to navigate despite not being as visually distinct, and a waypoint marker helped guide me if I ever got lost. Despite the overall improvement in quality, there were still a few blemishes. A certain late game level through a Flood infested ship was an absolute slog to traverse, for example. Otherwise, Halo 3 was a definite step up compared to its predecessors.
Unfortunately, the story suffered drastically. Rather than carefully construct a cohesive narrative, all of Halo 2’s excellent storytelling was essentially thrown in a garbage bin to rehash the original Halo’s basic story. Except this time, there is no interesting Flood reveal since I already know about them. I felt as though I was going through familiar story beats, complete with a mid-game Flood infestation. Halo 3 even ended in the same way, with an escape sequence that didn’t feel as satisfying as it did in Halo: Combat Evolved due to the uneven terrain and the lack of urgency.
The Halo trilogy is dated and never managed to find its footing. Halo: Combat Evolved may have been good for its time, but gets stale extremely fast and is only saved by its twist and ending. Halo 2 introduces a fantastic narrative and a fun gameplay mechanic, but both are only utilized through half the game while the other half repeats the tedium of the first game. Finally, Halo 3 features a step up in level design while having an ally that vastly improves the wearisome gameplay, but at the cost of the worst story of the trilogy. The main thing Halo has going for it nowadays is name recognition, which might be enough for Microsoft and a lot of people out there. There may be glimpses of brilliance, but they are overshadowed by mountains of monotony.
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