Halo: Master Chief Collection Catch-All

I forgot I had purchased this game...

Every now and then I remember that I have the game and hop on to see if I can get in a match. After 5 minutes of waiting, I bail out and go back to Forza Horizon 2.

Was looking forward to seeing what the beta patch did, but that keeps getting pushed back. From the sounds of the 2/3 console update, it sounds like they're addressing some system level party issues there as well.

Still wish I had waited on this rather than bought day one. What a f*cking travesty.

Great you get ODST free(incidentally my favorite Halo), but if you waited for a sale you could probably have gotten this for 35-40$, a working game, and then have 20-25$ to put towards new DLC.

Really this was the nail in the coffin for day one purchasing for me for quite a while.

Until June 2nd at least...

SallyNasty wrote:

Until June 2nd at least...

Hells to the yeah!

I miss Halo. This makes me think I should just plug in my 360. I wonder how many people gave up and just went back to 360, thus reinvigorating that community. Hmm...

At some point, this game will work and the Halo community will be there.

I think 343 needs to extend that free ODST DLC to anyone that has purchased the game. Just limiting it to "early adopters" is not acceptable at this point, when everyone is still suffering with a broken game.

On the plus side, Halo 5 felt like a day one purchase for me. But it just sucks that the MCC has been such a total fail.

*Legion* wrote:

At some point, this game will work and the Halo community will be there.

I think 343 needs to extend that free ODST DLC to anyone that has purchased the game. Just limiting it to "early adopters" is not acceptable at this point, when everyone is still suffering with a broken game.

"Early adopters" in the sense of those who purchased and played it before December 19th, nearly 6 weeks after it launched. If you somehow hadn't heard that the multiplayer parts were broken by then (like from whomever you wanted to play with), you weren't paying attention.

Kurrelgyre wrote:
*Legion* wrote:

At some point, this game will work and the Halo community will be there.

I think 343 needs to extend that free ODST DLC to anyone that has purchased the game. Just limiting it to "early adopters" is not acceptable at this point, when everyone is still suffering with a broken game.

"Early adopters" in the sense of those who purchased and played it before December 19th, nearly 6 weeks after it launched. If you somehow hadn't heard that the multiplayer parts were broken by then (like from whomever you wanted to play with), you weren't paying attention.

Yes and no. If they want me to buy their game at this point it will have to include ODST and cost $10 and be guaranteed to work. I have working copies of every game in the series that look fine outside of Halo 2. And that works fine SP.

Kurrelgyre wrote:

"Early adopters" in the sense of those who purchased and played it before December 19th, nearly 6 weeks after it launched. If you somehow hadn't heard that the multiplayer parts were broken by then (like from whomever you wanted to play with), you weren't paying attention.

There's a reasonable expectation that a game on the shelf works, or will at least be fixed in a timely manner.

The idea that people have to follow gaming press to make sure the game they want to buy isn't a completely broken train wreck is not acceptable.

Agreed. 343 won't get another dime from me. Ever.

And D1 buys are out for a long while.

Latest Halo: MCC Content Update Is Now Live, Gets Full Changelog

Matchmaking and party systems are vastly improved

The update overhauls the matchmaking system to improve its performance and success rate, while shortening search and time to match durations. Both the matchmaking and the party system have seen stability improvements, so things should be much less prone to failure.

From 343:

The next time you log into Halo: The Master Chief Collection, you will be prompted to download the latest content update, which focuses on matchmaking, party stability, title-specific improvements, and more.

Below, you’ll find a summary what is included in today’s update:

MATCHMAKING
Made a variety of updates to improve matchmaking performance and success rates
Improved matchmaking search times/time to match
Improved stability throughout the matchmaking process across all titles

PARTIES
Improved party stability

HALO 2
Made improvements to multiplayer shot registration
Improved campaign stability across a variety of levels
Addressed stability issues for matchmaking and custom games
Fixed issues around resuming H2A Campaign from “remastered” mode
Improved medal display consistency

HALO: CE
Fixed issues regarding aim assist which resulted in the reticle being pushed away from an enemy
Improved shot registration consistency between host / client in peer-to-peer custom game matches
Resolved a variety of UI inconsistencies, including team color randomization, medals, and in-game scoreboard display

Reddit seems to have a positive response to this patch, whereas they've been meticulous in detailing the failures of the previous patches.

Looking forward to giving it a try this weekend.

Been playing my way through the campaigns in this. Have to say that Halo 2 and 3 are both better than I remember, but they are still my two of my least favorite Halo campaigns. I have been off work the past couple of days due to being on pain pills that leave me pretty useless as a person after some dental work. I played through Halo 3 yesterday in basically one sitting (minus short food and bathroom breaks). Decided to do some terminal hunting before moving on to 4.

There are still a lot of single player bugs too especially around the terminals in all games so far and loading screens in Halo 3. I have had the game go to gameplay multiple times in Halo 3 while the loading screen was still showing. I could move around and fire weapons and everything but was stuck looking at the loading screen.

Looking forward to ODST and sort of hoping they do Reach as DLC at some point as well.

Rykin wrote:

Looking forward to ODST and sort of hoping they do Reach as DLC at some point as well.

Yes it'd be great if they released Reach at the same time. Maybe they will as a way of making back some more money from people they're giving ODST to for free.

I wouldn't expect Reach at the same time (surely they would have announced it by now). No idea if it will be happening at all really seeing as how Halo 5 will be out soon and they will need to get the team working on DLC maps for that. Think Reach was built on a different engine than 3 and 4 so porting it might be a lot of work.

Halo 5 probably wouldn't affect anything, seeing as 343 weren't the ones that did the Halo 3 or 4 ports for MCC either. Ruffian Games did. Reach would almost guaranteed be done by someone other than 343 too.

*Legion* wrote:

Halo 5 probably wouldn't affect anything, seeing as 343 weren't the ones that did the Halo 3 or 4 ports for MCC either. Ruffian Games did. Reach would almost guaranteed be done by someone other than 343 too.

Except that they often tap in 3rd party studios for the DLC maps as well.

Okay I have a question. I picked this up when it first came out. Haven't done a lot with it. When ODST came out, I was interested as that is my favorite Halo game. I got my code and redeemed it. Downloaded it. Where the hell is it? I see no mention of ODST in any menu! Also, I thought Halo Nightfall was free for people that bought MCC. I have to pay $15 for it??

It's part of the Halo 3 campaign. You can select it from there.

Jayhawker wrote:

It's part of the Halo 3 campaign. You can select it from there.

Thanks, never would have thought to look there.

Coolbeans wrote:
Jayhawker wrote:

It's part of the Halo 3 campaign. You can select it from there.

Thanks, never would have thought to look there.

I actually had the same issue. It took me awhile to figure out that it was treated as a part of Halo 3 instead of as a stand alone game.

This is hard for me to say, but I've never beat any of the Halo campaigns. Is this a good spot to start? How do they look now?

I ask because I can get it for $25 at Best Buy.

Balthezor wrote:

This is hard for me to say, but I've never beat any of the Halo campaigns. Is this a good spot to start? How do they look now?

I ask because I can get it for $25 at Best Buy.

I love the first Halo, admittedly partly because of nostalgia, but also because I think the campaign itself is pretty good. Nice levels, I don't even mind the Library that much. Halo 2 is great at start but lags for me, and I enjoyed Halo 4 more than I expected to; me and two friends co-op-ed through it and had a great time. Halo 3 . . . Halo 3 drags.

That being said, for $25, there's a hell of a lot of fun there per dollar. There's a definitely change in "feel" as opposed to more modern shooters; it's a much slower pace, no sprinting, a lot more deliberate instead of just being constantly frenetic, but I think that's a good thing. The updates have definitely made it look pretty darn good as well.

Parroting Milkman here, that's a lot of great, genre defining single player for $25. You could wait for it to go lower, sure, but as someone who picked it up for $60 I'm very pleased with my (singleplayer) experience.

...if you're interested in multilayer the game has apparently been quite rocky. I wouldn't know personally, I don't have XBL Gold. But the little bit of local split screen I've played has been pretty good. It was great to hit that Blood Gulch again.

Thank you for the replies. Halo 3 was the only one I owned when I had a 360. Never got far into it though for many reasons.

I would say that the Halo games have pacing similar to Half-Life 2 (or maybe even a bit faster). There are slow moments and frenetic moments and lots of moments in between. Still have some of the most stunning vista ever in a video game series especially Halo 2 Anniversary and Halo 4.

MilkmanDanimal wrote:
Balthezor wrote:

This is hard for me to say, but I've never beat any of the Halo campaigns. Is this a good spot to start? How do they look now?

I ask because I can get it for $25 at Best Buy.

I love the first Halo, admittedly partly because of nostalgia, but also because I think the campaign itself is pretty good. Nice levels, I don't even mind the Library that much. Halo 2 is great at start but lags for me, and I enjoyed Halo 4 more than I expected to; me and two friends co-op-ed through it and had a great time. Halo 3 . . . Halo 3 drags.

That being said, for $25, there's a hell of a lot of fun there per dollar. There's a definitely change in "feel" as opposed to more modern shooters; it's a much slower pace, no sprinting, a lot more deliberate instead of just being constantly frenetic, but I think that's a good thing. The updates have definitely made it look pretty darn good as well.

I will also parrot this statement, every single word. Well said!

Having somebody to couch co-op with really ups the fun factor for me. Since they are Sandboxy, two players wreaking havoc in the arenas can create some really fun experiences.