![]() When this remaster was released in 2014, it came with an updated multiplayer mode that adds weapons, overhauls the UI and sound and graphical effects, and is playable on seven remastered maps. The distinction between Halo 2 multiplayer and Halo 2 Anniversary multiplayer is still a bit jarring. It's especially cool to be able to toggle which Halo games to search within if you feel like playing Halo 2 and Halo Reach but not Halo 1, that's as easy as ticking a box. There are a lot of positives to the experience here: As more games are added to the Master Chief Collection, I especially appreciate its matchmaking options, which let you set a particular size game and type of match you want to play, and then get matched with other players searching for the same. I'm eager to play more, but concerned by discussions online that indicate the presence of multiplayer issues more significant than any I ran into with Reach back at its launch. I played about an hour of multiplayer, and I love the classic Halo 2 experience even when maps feel a bit empty and the UI feels absolutely ancient. It's possible they sounded like that in the Xbox One release because that was all 343 had to work with, but my guess is something again went wrong in the translation to PC. ![]() The remastered sound is obviously much fuller and punchier, particularly the music, but dialogue sounded surprisingly low quality, like it was recorded at a poor sample rate. Sound is also an area that just seems off-with the classic graphics and sound, and in classic multiplayer, the audio is more muted, which roughly fits my memory of the game circa 2004. The cutscenes are especially bad, but even for gameplay, I'd suggest increasing the gamma some to ease up on the black levels. ![]() Halo 2 Anniversary is a bit dark on the whole-it feels like it overcompensates for the lack of lighting in the original game by going too far in the other direction. There's something about the lighting and coloration of the cutscenes that clashes with Halo's aesthetic, and I largely prefer the in-engine overhaul of Halo 2 Anniversary. Compared to gameplay they're too dark, the facial models for Johnson and Cortana just look off, and the Master Chief's armor doesn't look quite right, either. ![]() The cutscenes by Blur look technically terrific, far more detailed than the in-engine graphics, but I don't love them. This even works in the pre-rendered cutscenes!Ĭortana kinda looks like she's been posessed, a la The Exorcist (Image credit: Microsoft) And it still feels like wizardry to be able to swap between graphics engines instantly by pressing Tab. The difference between them and the original graphics is stark and impressive. Thankfully, outside that tearing and a couple short hangs in online play, I didn't run into any other issues in the campaign, and the Halo 2 Anniversary graphics hold up surprisingly well for being 6-year-old paint on a 15-year-old game. This was with one player in California and the other in New York, so distance likely played a factor. This would explain some of his erratic driving during a long vehicle segment (or at least that's what he's blaming it on). We played a campaign mission in online co-op and the experience was nearly flawless on my end, with a couple 2-3 second hangs that may have been a network issue rather than a game issue Jorge experienced harsher network issues with numerous 2-3 second hangs every other minute when he joined my game.
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