Halo: The Master Chief Collection

I'd love to recommend this, but the co-op netcode is truly atrocious and I cannot fathom why it functions the way it does. In most games, at least these days, when you connect to a server, you control your character on your pc, and it sends updates to the server for other players to see. In MCC, you control the server entity *directly* - meaning you have to wait for the server update for your inputs to work. I have 300ms ping to my friend in the US - in many games, this is slightly rough but bearable. In this game, I press a movement key and have to *wait 300ms for my character to start moving*. I start shooting and *have to wait 300ms for the gun to fire*. Playing a game like that is absolutely impossible, and I'm baffled it works like this:( I was really looking forward to playing this game with my friend, but this made that completely impossible. How on earth this is still an issue after 7 years (or more counting Xbox release) is beyond me.

It's Halo.

after playing and beating through the bungie era games for first time i could understand why the halo saga was so important and influential to people who grew up with them. going through CE, 2, 3, ODST and Reach for the first time was such a cool experience. i get the nostalgia now lol. the music, atmosphere, characters, story, everything just hits different. especially reach, knowing how much these games meant to people growing up, i can definitely see why halo was such a massive part of gaming for so many people. really glad i finally played through them.

very fun game

Разговор Сержанта Эйвери и Чифа: - Чиф, мне что-то упирается сзади. - Убрать? - Ни в коем случае, Чиф. Ждем Ремейк первой!

Played through the whole thing solo on Legendary to get myself ready for the next Halo. That's a lot of hours with a controller in my hands, and most of them were good ones. The campaigns still hold up. Legendary solo is still Legendary solo. No complaints about the games themselves. My problem is with what this collection is supposed to be. It's called the Master Chief Collection, and the pitch has always been "every Halo in one place." Except it isn't. Halo 5 isn't here. Infinite isn't here. Halo Wars isn't here. I get that there are technical and licensing reasons, but I'd have paid for DLC to fold them in without thinking twice. Having to bounce between three storefronts and two launchers to play a series that ships as a single package is exactly the problem this collection was made to solve. Then there's the unlocks. There used to be cosmetics you earned by finishing every campaign on Legendary — a genuine badge, the kind of thing you'd only have if you'd actually put in the work. They patched that. Now you can just buy them. I found this out after the fact, which somehow made it worse. If the reward for the hardest thing in the game is also sitting in a storefront, the achievement stops meaning anything. It doesn't break the game, but it takes the air out of a playthrough I specifically undertook to earn something. So: the games are great, the collection is fine, and the stewardship is disappointing. Buy it on sale, play the campaigns, don't expect the definitive Halo package the name promises.

requires a microsoft account even for single player