Halo: Campaign Evolved

Hell yeah. Not perfect, but feels right. New ending is outstanding.

Is it fun? yes. Is it perfect? No But with all the extra bells and whistles and updated graphics, it still feels like halo.

黑楼 你崛起罢

Looks amazing!

Almost done with the game and been having fun playing this coop. Had lil issues at beginning,like god awful first sign in into microsoft account but it was to be expected lmao but my issues at least were fixed with the patch mostly.Levels like library are not horrid anymore but felt almost too easy on Legendary even but still better than og level imo.Added cutscenes bring more life into the game except some horrible voice actings here and there sadly,should have just kept og lines and boost the audio. Performance is pretty good considering I stream with same machine too with ultra settings so no complaints there. Gameplay is smooth and could use the leap/vault function from Infinite too. Extra weapons are sick too and make the fights different but lil bit too easy for old veteran like me.Now all this woke this and that,not even gonna get into that brainrot bs too much except certain lady in new missions is kinda annoying but not THAT bad lol. Over and all solid 8/10 for me,not worth 60e for normies but for Halo fan like me has been worth and gonna play many times through :) Can't wait to hunt 40+ skulls help

I think this is the definitive way to experience Halo: Combat Evolved. It was refreshing to experience the story and gameplay with such nice visuals and updated controls after not having played Halo One for, like, twenty years. The soundtrack is fire, the gunplay felt nice, and seeing weapons from the later installments like the SMG and the needle rifle was a nice integration. Also being able to drive the wraith and mount enemy vehicles was a nice addition as well, making the game feel more consistent with the following games. It was nice to utilize the same shortcuts in certain levels to skip sections and overall was a great nostalgia trip. THE SPRINT IS AN IMPROVEMENT. Don't let people try to convince you it was a bad inclusion. Another nice addition is the ability to hold on to the overshield or optical camo without applying on pickup. This allowed using the overshield as a back up if i got overwhelmed. I've only completed the original campaign at the point of this review and would give this a near perfect rating for faithfulness to the OG. Two issues stood out to me, but did not cause me enough trouble to really care, but just in case it helps you decide if this game is worth it, i figured it'd be worth mentioning. The stutters: I had two, once in combat, and once at a checkpoint. Neither caused me to die or be frustrated, though the game basically froze for 15 seconds before continuing like normal. I played this game in two sessions, and it happened once in each. The "out of bounds" zone: this was annoying, but hardly an inconvenience. The game gives you ample time to turn back, and just keeps you from exploring edges of the map. While i think the game receives no benefit to this being added, i only ran into it twice. Once on the first time you land on the halo and second on a banshee flying as high as was allowed. Overall, this is a great experience, and for new and old players, this was very enjoyable.

TLDR: Is it worth playing? Yes, but maybe wait for a sale. The original CE is one of my favorite and most replayed games of all time, so I have a lot of thoughts. I'll start with the cons(of the main campaign, as that's what most people are spending their money for). [list] [*]A good amount of the cutscenes are laughably bad; pre-rendered, yet somehow riddled with UE5 fuzz everywhere, bad direction and stiff animations. would not be an issue if they were comparable to H2:A cutscenes, but somehow the 12 year old cutscenes win. [*]Voice acting in general from the main 4 characters is not great, I think it would've been fine to reuse the 2001 voice lines, similar to MGS3, as the very few extra sections they added to the main campaign are trivial. [*]Main menu is pre-rendered, which feels like a disservice to the original [*]Menu UI is very bland, removing a lot of the mysterious and Y2K-esque vibe of the original [/list] The next few things are also cons, but can be immediately fixed [list] [*]Player/HUD UI is oversimplified and catered to newer video game players(weapon drop icons and hitmarkers can be disabled in settings, main HUD can be fixed with the CleanHUD mod) [*]UE5 fuzz everywhere due to Nanite integration(can be fixed with mods or engine.ini tweaks if you are smart) [*]Non removable screen effects such as film grain and chromatic aberration(can be fixed with mods/engine.ini tweaks) (Just check out the "Evolved Clarity" mod as that's what fixes most of the UE5 crap) [/list] And now on to the pros, which do outweigh the cons [list] [*]Probably the most important one, it still feels and plays like Halo, gunplay and vehicles feel great, jumping is a little less floaty but it didn't impact the experience [*]From a technical standpoint the visuals are incredible, some sections of The Silent Cartographer looked like an engine showcase [*]Performance is pretty solid, not as great as some non-UE5 games released this year(RE9/Pragmata) but nothing horrible, no crashes either [*]The second half of the game is improved greatly from the original, [spoiler] The Library [/spoiler] is probably a top 3 mission in this version. [*]The music is exactly the same, barring a few slight differences in pacing during cutscenes [*]New weapons feel pretty decent to use and actually somehow blend in to the CE sandbox(3 of the 9 new weapons do not appear in the main campaign, and one of them only appears in the last 2 missions) [*]Sprint and ADS on all weapons are not as invasive as they were in H5 and HI(Sprint can be disabled via skull and ADS with a mod) [*]Magnum All in all, I enjoyed my 10ish hours with the game. There are some things that made me say "eh that sucks", which is a lot better than "wow this is unplayable" which was honestly what I was expecting going into this.