Quick Look: Halo: The Master Chief Collection

If only they had pressed the back button during the halo 2 cutscene and saw the dramatic difference. Their minds would be blown.

#BLACKCRUSHTHINGS

@ripelivejam: The black crush has been on the XB1 since the beginning. I remember when everyone was insisting that the colours looked stronger when comparing to multiplats on the ps4.

It is interesting that it has taken this long for peoples eyesight to adjust...

Why the hell is Jeff helming this quick look when all he does is compare it to COD? I know it's not COD, that's why I want to play it.

Let Drew play the game for Christ's sake, someone who enjoys it and knows how to play it.

@jmurph_93: I was trying that in Halo 1 anniversary (within the MCC) and that wasn't working for some reason.

I still REALLY want to play through the E3 gameplay trailer. They changed it WAY too much from this to the original game.

Hot damn does Halo 2: Anniversary look amazing. Definitely getting an Xbox One for this.

You won't regret it. :)

Been playing Halo 2 every possible minute since I picked this game up. The campaign stuff is amazing, and the multiplayer is as good as it ever was (though I've only played a small amount of multi so far, I will be spending more time there once the issues are patched).

This is the only game (or collection of games in this case) making me want an Xbox One.

So sweet. Now, where is my Mass Effect Collection?

Because it wasn't that impressive in the grand scheme of gaming. Gigantic leap in terms of console shooters and will probably never be topped in terms of impact for that genre for consoles. Like Jeff has said multiple times in the past though, which I agree with, if you were playing PC shooters all along Halo was kind of just a solid shooter.

Iv just watched this and the Dragon Age quicklook, does Jeff hate literally every new game coming out?!

Probably should of let drew play, he's the obvious halo fan.

Maaaan, I really wish all Warthogs made the Trackmania car horn sound that Drew imitated.

>new game

Jeff made up his mind about the Halos long ago

It's hard to watch Jeff play Halo badly. Especially when it's a game that is reverent to myself.

Hey guys, don't Google black crush.

I've had that same experience. I was gaming on the PC in those days and there were simply so many better shooters at the time that I could never really appreciate Halo on any level and mostly found it bland and somewhat clunky to play. They made it very specifically for consoles and for a person like myself that was used to fast paced shooters like Counter Strike or Battlefield 1942 or Unreal Tournament, it just didn't feel very good.

What is the definition of a 'halo guy' or a 'halo superfan'...? Why do people feel the need to put the disclaimer "I'm not a halo guy but....' before saying something positive about a halo game?

Yeah, that's definitely true. Like with Goldeneye, I think the first Halo is very much a time and place thing. Sure it also had good AI and pretty good encounter design for its time, but the game mainly blew the minds of people who didn't play shooters on a PC. I did play stuff like Battlefield so I never really "got" Halo the way some friends of me did, even though I played the game on co-op Legendary with those friends and had a blast. But I always thought the controls were clunky, and didn't really see what the big deal was. BUT the game was a revolution for console shooters, and one of the most important console games of all time.

Drew gets a controller at some point. Yay!

@timeshero: It only works in the Halo 2 Anniversary edition unfortunately

Seeing those Warthogs collide in Blood Gulch suddenly made me want an Xbox One more than ever.

Bumper Jumper for life! hope the matchmaking is sorted by the weekend.

Drew questioned whether if people who have never played halo will buy this collection.

Well, I've never played a Halo game before having not owned any of the Xbox systems before. I bought this collection and have started from Halo 1 and plan to play through each game in sequential order.

@james_hayward: Because they're telling you that it's a feature that stands out to them as a positive in a game series they don't necessarily like that much?

I get that.... but when people speak of most other games I don't hear them use the "I'm not a game x guy/superfan but..." qualifier anywhere near as frequently as with discussions about halo games.

Why not just say "I like this feature" rather than "I don't like this game series but I admit that this feature is good"?

It is almost as if there's an implied need for an apology for liking an aspect of a halo game because otherwise liking a halo game is somehow gauche? If true, that's a bit pretentious.

Listening to Jeff's opinions on Halo is just the worst.

They complained about the Xbox One black crush problem a while ago.

PS3 had the same problem early on, well, it wasn't the PS3, just the poor ports it kept getting, I remember a few that had black crush or were just a lot darker compared to 360.

1 minute in and I'm so confused...Also I don't remember Bungie ever having matchmaking problems with their games.

I nerded out like Drew, only over Mass Effect 2 trailers, so I'm sure that kind of trailers will exist. I think there just needs to be a game that's worth dorkin out over.

It was actually the 360 that had the problem. Took them a while to fix it, too.

I found this odd on the Bombcast, too. This Halo collection is essentially a remastered blu-ray box set. It's a bit like The Wire in the sense that OF COURSE you know what Halo is, but for one reason or another, you might not haven't got around to playing it yet.

It's a pretty cool idea and good way to archive the franchise for the next 10+ years.

Well it does feel like over the past few days I've heard people use the term "black crush" quite a lot. Too much one might say.

@humanity: yeah i'm not denying it exists, more that it meant fuck-all to me and i wouldn't even notice or care unless it were pointed out to me. Just seems a bit obsessive, but hey maybe i'll start noticing it and getting bothered by it too!! So thanks? :D

Yep, same here. When Halo was released I was also still childish enough to call it a poor game because I was already playing similar shooters on PC.

It is still a solid game though, in all honesty. And I found that I really started enjoying Halo at Halo 3. I thought that was the best Halo game by far up until that point and I started appreciating the previous two from that point on as well.

All in all, I think this Collection is pretty awesome. I don't think Halo or Halo 2 are all that amazing, but I still would like to play them in order to get to 3 and 4. I actually really like Halo now and I'm one of the few people that thought Halo 4 was absolutely amazing.

I'm really looking forward to Halo 5.

If you watch enough quick looks he's in on, it sure seems that way. Most of his complaints are small, nit-picky things that matter very little in the grand scheme of things, but he sure does an excellent job at making perfectly good games seem crummy. (I immediately think of the Pokemon x/y quick look, but there are plenty others.)

PC release PLEASE.

@ripelivejam: @humanity: It's common terminology in DVD & Blu-ray reviews, but less so in games, granted. And there's nothing obsessive about it, it's actually a pretty serious issue, since it, well... makes you not able to see details, at all, in some cases. And when trying to compensate for it, it pretty much fucks up the entire colour space.

I think the original Halo:CE was wonderful mechanically, but largely lacking in the things that made the other PC shooters great. No user maps, no mods, not many graphical options, etc.

Well I'm mostly talking about games where side by side, the PS3 was the much darker one, it happened quite a lot when watching GameTrailers compare a game, but it is possible they just had their video settings messed up for one of the consoles, a lot of people were confused by the PS3s full RGB settings after all.

typical call of duty scrub thinkin left trigger is best for ADS

I'm a bit confused by Jeff's complaint about this game having matchmaking issues, and ranking stuff not working right now, having something to do with poking a hole in the idea that this is a "respectful", "definitive" collection for Halo fans. Presumably those issues will be sorted within a few days, and the collection itself has gotten rave reviews from just about everywhere. And I say all of this as someone who doesn't really give a shit about Halo.

Why didn't they put the best Halo game in? Reach is by far the best out of the series, and they didn't put it in. But this got me super nostalgic, could play into which console I get.

Where were you on the first page?
lol

I had a nostalgia twinge right around 3:10.

Wow that 60fps is weird looking after playing Halo at 30 for so many years... Does it look that smooth just because of GB's 60fps video player, or is that what it actually looks like when you play it?

I'm playing through Halo: CE online right now with a buddy. I forgot how much I like the first one. Movements a little slow compared with modern shooters, but it's still alot of fun.

This is some The Orange Box value

I'm OK with enjoying Halo