Halo MCC: First Impressions Thread

[SatanicBagels]

I'm not lucky enough to have played MCC collection yet but am planning on picking it up pretty soon here. Just out of curiosity, what are everyone else's initial impressions of the collection as a whole. 

 

Does H2A play similar to Halo 2 multiplayer or is it a whole new beast all together?

[FarCry3r]

Here's my first impression.

 

I started playing when the digital version get unlocked. I started the Master Chief Saga playlist on Normal difficulty. UI is a bit mess. You need to know your way around since the game doesn't teach you how to navigate it properly. Campaign plays fine, although there's occasional lags here and there. Overall its an a-OK experience.

 

Until I started to play co-op with my friend. The co-op session start fine. We finished Pillar of Autumn on Legendary and move on to the next level: Halo. That's when we start getting problem. 5 minutes into that level, there's gonna be a point where the game will not responding. I can still talk to my friend through Xbox party but I can't move, I can't shoot, the only thing I can do is, view the scenery.

 

I tried going to last checkpoint, but it still not responding. When I tried to restart the level, all players and NPC vanish from the screen but nothing happens. The only thing I can do is, quit to the main menu and resume the game. So, since I select "Save & Quit" menu, the game should save my progress right? Hell no. I have to restart the whole Halo level again and the best part is, we got the not responding problem again after a few minutes. We tried on different level and difficulty but it still persist. In the end, I just give up.

 

Oh, then I remember my digital copy comes with access to the Halo: Nightfall digital series. Perhaps I can take the time to cool off and enjoy the series. Sounds good, right? I launched Halo Channel, click on the first episode and press Play. The video load for 1 (one) second and stop. What is this? A joke? A prank? A hidden feature? An easter egg?

 

I haven't touched the multiplayer at all. If they can't get a 2 players co-op right, I don't expect them to get the multiplayer right.

 

So, there. My first impression as a whole. Not good. Right now I don't feel the collection worth my money spent on it with all the problems plaguing the game.

 

BTW, I love Halo and preordered this digitally on the day they announced it. 343 disappoint me. It's my birthday and I can barely enjoy the game.

[Necroscope]

I tend to agree with FarCry3r.

 

I jumped right into the new Halo 2 multiplayer. Only I didn't because it could not find anyone else for me to play with. So after 20 minutes of restarting the multiplayer search to no avail, I decided to play some campaign. Part way through Pillar of Autumn, I get a party request and pop out to join. We try to get multiplayer going, again to no avail. Finally we decide to try some co-op. Halo 2: Hotel Zanzibar. 4 Skulls on, Heroic Level, CRASH. Change party leader, same settings CRASH. No skulls, classic mode game loads. Play for a few minutes CRASH.

 

These are hard crashes. God awful sounds, screen lock, wind up back at the dashboard hard crashes.

 

We finally try just starting at the beginning of Halo 2, no skulls, no enhanced graphics. We might as well have broken out the 360's and started a game. We did finally get some decent playing in. We also were able to switch to enhance graphics. However, if we switched back and forth the game would CRASH.

 

All in all, for a ten year old game. The experience totally sucked. 343 should be ashamed to have released this in such unstable form.

 

Pre-ordering a digital download so that you can wait a day or two for them to sort out match making is so full of **** it isn't even funny.

[Stephen Stobie]

Honestly the thing i was most excited for was being able to watch Nightfall....

I turned on my Xbone, saw under apps that the Halo Channel was up for download, Installed it and checked it out. It let me watch the first ep of Nightfall.

Oh I have a code to let me watch that, I input the code, it downloads something, I go back to the Halo Channel. Nothing is different... Why did I input this code?

I've heard soo much about 343's awesome community responses so please. Explain what the code was for? 

[Daniel Anthony John OBrien]

My first impressions so far is that it is disapointing. I play double team all of the time with my best friend, and there is no double team. There are a huge lack of matchmaking game types. They really need to have Halo 2 Double Team, Halo 2 Slayer, and other game specific game types. I understand that they do not want too many options, but there are no multi team or double team playlists at all. That is really disapointing. I am so thankful that this game exists, but am excited for when those great things come out.

[DarthWeasel]

My first impressions are that the game looks beautiful but has a plethora of issues.

 

The new sound effects are jarringly different from what Halo sounds like. Most of the new weapon sounds belong in CoD and the plasma weapons are awfully quiet with no feel of impact. Also the timing for the melee sound effect is off. There is a distinctive pause between when melee impacts and you here the sound. Additionally melee sounds are so quiet you can't hear them over any other sound going on with this same issue for the warthog engine sounds. An option to turn Remastered sounds and music off without turning off the remastered graphics would be a great feature that hopefully will be added in by a patch.

 

In halo 2 campaign there are a lot of missing objects in the campaign that were in the original. For example there are a massive amount of crates and other objects missing in the level Outskirts. Not sure why this is but it really stands out.

 

Can't play the multiplier yet due to the server issues but the fact that there is only one Halo 2 classic playlist is so disappointing I don't even want to bother with it anymore. I can play halo 3 and 4 on my 360 with all the features they took away intact (such as armor customization). I bought this game mainly to play Halo CE and Halo 2 on xbox live and My options are so limited that there is no point. 

 

Armor customization has been largely removed and replaced with armor sets so you can't mix and match armor. since most of halo 4's armor permutations looked awful this isn't such a bad loss in that game but in halo 3 its sorely missed. Halo 4 is also missing the DLC armor and abilities as well as weapon skins. Most of the emblems from old games are back in however most of the old ones look goofy. Just look at the mark of shame for an example. The emblems color choices are not all that great as well.

 

All in all the game is very unstable with far to many crash bugs. Literally my first mission in crashed. 

 

Halo MCC is a lot less than what it should have been. How it shipped with so many problems is beyond me. 

 

Edit: The halo 2 anniversary multiplayer weapons look more like the originals than the remastered weapons in the campaign and they look better too. It's almost like two different development teams worked on this project both with their own view of what halo should look like. Whats that all about?

[Ha10guy7777777]

A lot of complaints I see about Halo: MCC. I'm getting it today with an Xbox One with Assassin's Creed Unity and Assassin's Creed Black Flag (I think Black Flag is the physical copy so I'm going to trade it in, keeping Unity though.).

 

Anyway, these complaints have already been addressed by 343 Industries on their Twitter page. They said that basically it's not their fault. They said it's the Xbox Live servers acting wonky and stuff. Maybe it's because of the Midnight launch? I honestly don't know.

 

I honestly don't exactly know what to expect right now, except well... I don't know to be honest. A lot of first impressions here seem to be negative. And I'm really pumped up for this game. This game is the reason I got an Xbox One, so I could play Halo with my friends again like in the old days.... but I don't know. Maybe it's just the digital copy. I'm getting the physical copy on a disk and I'm going to play the heck out of Halo: MCC!

[BraveJhawk]

[big snip] Maybe it's just the digital copy. I'm getting the physical copy on a disk and I'm going to play the heck out of Halo: MCC!

 

I doubt there is any difference between the physical and digital copies. Once you get the physical copy you still have to install it onto the Xbox One's HDD (and have the disc in the drive). Having said that I do have a digital copy and have had several issues. It has taken forever when I have tried to get into a multiplayer matchmaking session. Because of that I have mostly played custom games (private matches) with friends. Apart from that I have had the game crash a couple times on me. It would freeze and often repeat the same second of music/sound and either I would have to go out and Quit the game/app or it was crash out to the home screen.

I am still excited to play this once the initial bugs/issues are fixed and I expect to be playing this at least up until Halo 5 comes out.

Halo 2 Anniversary is SO beautiful it's hard to believe. I started the campaign and kept switching between the original graphics and the re-done graphics. There is almost no comparison. The new graphics are worlds better than the original graphics.

 

I hope 343i and Microsoft can get the issues resolved quickly! Good luck.