Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary

Completed as of writing this review: Base Game (Heroic)

Not the best kind of remastering a game, since it destroys the original vision and also doesn't really have it's own art-direction. It just goes full-on unnecessary "realistic" mode and adds bloom in every dark room. Well, at least it has added skulls and also terminals, which expand on lore. But I would suggest anybody to use the old graphics option.. unless you have no taste in art-style of course.

I was a teenager when this released. At the time, I tried it and wasn't interested. It felt dumb and puerile, with your little squirt gun shooting gooey laser blobs at weird little giggling alien midgets.

I finally played through the whole thing as an adult and my assessment did change - I recognize now that the cartoonish art style was appealing in a way, that the whole game is kind of a fun joke that doesn't take itself seriously. That's cool.

But the levels are just so bland and tedious. I basically don't remember anything of it even though I played it fairly recently. So it's mildly fun but only if you play it cooperatively like I did.

Halo has revolutionized the FPS genre and it definitely feels like something big. But the first game didn't age all that well to be honest

Finished my first play through in 2020 and I must say, while I can appreciate and see why it was revolutionary at the time of release, this shit does not hold up in 2020. every level is the same 3 corridors over and over and over and over. I wouldn’t be so hard on the game if I weren’t also playing ocarina of time at the same time, which absolutely does hold up in every way this game doesn’t. excited for halo 2!

Levels with repeating design, some of which you have to play twice during the campaign. Looks dated, but still fun to play, especially co-operatively.