Halo: The Master Chief Collection (Xbox One)

Finally, Amazon actually deliver games on release day rather than the usual day after release that I'm accustomed to.Aside from the fast delivery, this as all we know is the release of all the Halo's related to the MC (1, 2, 3, 4) and excludes all halo titles that don't have the MC as the main protagonist (Reach and Halo 3: ODST). The Menu is well done and allows to seamlessly jump to any Halo campaign missions from the four games. The multiplayer playlists are pretty straight forward if a bit jumbled, you get told which version of Halo game each playlist uses via the cover icons towards the side but if you want to play say Big team slayer, you can't specifically choose which Halo multiplayer version you want to use, its just simply all the four titles cobbled up together. Its something 343 should work on in my opinion. There's a Halo 5 beta section on the menu which is greyed out for now come this December when the beta releases.Halo 2 Anniversary is the biggest highlight to the the bundle. The in-game visuals have been revamped and look stunning, the in-game sound has been completely changed, guns feel like they have extra punch, the classic halo background symphony during missions are a lot clearer as you can clearly hear the difference by toggling between the anniversary and original. Blur did a really good job with the cut scenes, very breathtakingly realistic, I mean Tartarus looks AWESOME. There's a bit of an issue with Miranda Keyes' voice not 'matching' her face but that's due to Julie Benz's sub par voice acting (who could forget??), something blur could do nothing about.Halo Nightfall is a welcoming edition to the game. It comes in episodes with the first one being around 30 minutes long and the others yet to be released. Similar to the forward unto dawn web series that was released, without putting spoilers, it puts you into the perspective of Agent Locke that we'll all be playing as in Halo 5 and takes place around after the events of Halo 3. Cant really say more for this part without ruining the story for anyone that doesn't want to be spoiled.Downsides, well aside from the small quirk i mentioned for matchmaking, the initial installation of the game is a bit of a pain, just takes too long to install (took me a whole day to install). It seems the installation tries to download the update and install the game disc at the same time. Now I have fibre optic broadband running at roughly 70+ megabits per second so I'd like to think their servers are overloaded. It's not a big problem, you get to play the game when its at least 18% done, but the resulting installation causes the game to act up by constant freezes to the campaign. That being said, the freeze continues even after the update, something a future update could fix i guess. Going back to matchmaking, i can rarely find a game no matter what playlist i pick, waiting a good 10 to 15 minutes to find a few players is just too long, it's a problem 343 seems to be aware of at least.Aside from the few temporary problems arising as of now, the bundle is as good as it gets, Halo 2 Anniversary looks absolutely gorgeous, 3 and 4 run absolutely smooth, almost surreal how the extra frames and no jaggies make a difference to the game play experience. They honestly couldn't have done better with the bundle itself.

An absolutely worth while purchase. Bringing in four games on to your Xbox One console for the price of one (plus additional content!) Halo: The Master Chief Collection will keep you busy for hours on end. I'm not going to go too much in to detail but here are a couple of worthy pointers:-Visually stunning, runs smoothly. The Xbox One handles the game well.-Control settings easy to swap around (a moment of silence for all spartans that have lost their lives because a friend chucked a grenade near them in co-op instead of trying to look down their sights)-The ability to switch between old gen graphics and new gen by simply pressing the back button. Players approach this differently; some actually prefer to keep the old look on. Personally, I only switch to quickly compare and amaze. There's no delay/lag at all when switching between graphics.- Playtime: over 100 multiplayer maps split between each game, forge the ability to create your own maps, Halo nightfall, Halo 5 beta, every campaign mission... need I say more?- Everything is unlocked. This enables players to literally play any mission they like from the campaign without having to go through missions they do not want to do.- Smart and easy navigation for the menus.- Enemies are smart, probably even smarter than they were before. I'm not sure if it is a coincidence but they will run/duck for cover if they are outgunned. Even run you over with vehicles.- The music, OH GOD THE MUSIC. Everyone knows Bungie knew how to make an epic moment even more so with the addition of the right music at the right time. As pointed out by a friend and soon after realizing myself 343 have actually increased the volume of tracks. This can be noticed when you switch between old and new graphics. It's always nice to see they are looking at the smaller details.I'm not a Halo fanatic, in fact when they Halo games came out originally I did not own an Xbox or 360 and would usually pick CoD over Halo. What 343 have done is essentially what Destiny should have been, a huge game packed with content to keep players interested. This kind of quantity is just unseen today for the price it is being sold at which I find a huge shame and even more is supposedly planned free of charge.Lets just say if Activision made/published, each campaign would have probably been £40. I'm sorry Destiny, you've simply been outclassed here.Dan