Recent reviews by Miss Aemilia

WE DIVE TOGETHER OR NOT AT ALL.

I decided to check this game after seeing a few people play it, and hearing good things about it. I went in not expecting anything amazing given the concept, but after playing the game for 24 hours, I really don't regret my purchase at all, and that goes for the garden flipped DLC too.

This game is like a Zen Garden for me. I can spend hours upon hours in it, completely relaxed, chilling. The game isn't perfect, and there's definitely things to improve but what's here is beyond with it, and I hope they continue to improve the core gameplay of the game, as they have in the past.

I'm going to open up with this: I cannot recommend this game in its current state, especially please don't buy the whole collection of unreleased games. Currently I'm only referring to Reach as the other games have yet to be released. I'll try to update as this progresses

The core gameplay is maintained beautifully. Reach is still Reach, it plays the same, the story is the same. However, this isn't to say the game is the same. I'll get to that.

The launch went incredibly smooth, multiplayer plays perfectly despite having a currently insane population. This is a miracle, especially if you were around for the original MCC launch.

The Soundtrack is still phenomenal over 9 years later. Marty did a godlike job.

The acknowledgement and allowance for mods by 343 has been fantastic. When you start the game, you get two options. Play with anti-cheat, and play with it disabled to allow mods. You can't play matchmaking without anti-cheats but you can custom games with friends. There's no official tools but with tools like Assembly, we're doing just fine for now, however official tools will not be unappreciated. That said, the community is already doing wonders with what we have and it's been beautiful. So, overall. Mod support, not perfect but good, better than most games.

Performance has been solid for me, My RX 5700 XT gets 300+ FPS consistently at 1080. The port seems to be technically really good.

343 did do service to the community by trying to seek out what settings PC gamers want the most and implementing them, stuff like FOV sliders, et al. It's not perfect, but they still did try, as evidenced by their regular blog posts and insider flights leading up to the release.

Keyboard/Mouse works decently well, however rebinding is lacking somewhat. Default controls kinda suck, but it's easy enough to rebind to something usable.

The settings, while they tried to offer options pc gamers expect and want, lack any real video configuration options outside of resolution and don't really have any impact on performance.

I can't attest to this myself but many people have issues with the audio crackling and creating a bad experience. From what I've seen, this is at best guess 10% of the community.

Forge and Theatre are not in the game as of yet but will be later, according to 343 (I've heard people say that 343 said March but haven't been able to find this date myself). This continues the issue with 343, as they did with Halo 5, not understanding that Forge is not some bonus side feature, It is a core feature of the game, it cannot be skipped. It not only fuels the multiplayer but has hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of hours worth of gameplay in it. It is the most significant thing Bungie added in Halo 3. But 343 wouldn't know what Bungie did right, as they've never shown much understanding of it.

I know that Forge is still in the game and cn be unlocked with mods, and I have been enjoying this myself desite being very unfinished, but to suggest that it's okay because of that is missing the point. It shows poor prioritisation of development. The game could have been released later when the porting work was complete.

The new progression system SUCKS. Halo Reach had the best customisation system of any Halo, and while the customisation itself is still exactly as it should be, the progression to acquire the armour was, quote, Modernised. This means that we no longer have the wonderful point buy system, we instead unlock armour by levelling up and get given armour based on rank, and everyone gets the same armour pieces at the same rank, and because of which everyone looks like gods damned clones of each other. Oh! I almost forgot. You can only get levels by playing matchmade multiplayer or Firefight. No custom games, no campaign as you could before.
So, 343. Let me ask you a question. You do know that people wanted Reach because we wanted Reach, right? Not your awful Halo 4+ ranking ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. Bungie already knocked it out of the park. Don't fix what isn't broken. I realise that the grind wasn't great on the original system but that can be fixed via rebalancing the system, not outright replacing it with an inferior one.

Map voting is gone. What the hell are you thinking, 343? What's worse is because of this, almost every map you get in multiplayer is awful 343 made maps, not solid, well crafted Bungie maps. The playlists are all ruined because of this one small decision.

Co-op netcode is fundamentally broken. Playing campaign on anything other than over LAN, otherwise the experience is unbearable for anyone that's not the host. This was the case back on the 360, too, but the fact it was glossed over is a travesty, especially since couch co-op is not an option on PC MCC.

Menu system is terrible, no idea what their design was but it doesn't work. Everything is a mess to navigate and find what you're looking for. Desperately needs a redesign. Again.

Matchmaking is a downgrade from 3 and Reach on the 360. We no longer can match based on connection type or psych profile, and the playlist selection provides less granularity than we had in the past.

The lack of real file share is the biggest WTF. Halo 3, Reach had very easy access to community content from either ingame or web based fileshare search. It was very well curated, with actively promoted content. Lots of game modes, lots of maps, lots of user generated content to choose from. MCC you can only access user content by searching directly for the user themselves. This makes no sense, especially considering that Halo 4 and 5 both have proper file share search. What the hell?

Missing out-of-game services. I feel like not enough people remember Bungie .net, with so many awesome stats. Heatmaps, records, et al. It was a wonderful service that simply added so much onto the already fantastic game.

The state the game is in is unacceptable, and it represents a greater problem that 343 refuses to acknowledge what Bungie did right, what the games need, and will forcefeed their systems, their decisions, their ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ down our throats.
Don't just blindly accept this because Halo is finally on PC. They did a lot right, but they didn't give the game as it should have been. This isn't full-fat Halo Reach, this is a changed Reach.

Do something about this. Demand more. Remember that we are not beholden to the company, they are to us, we can have better, we already have had better. This is unacceptable.

The MCC is the future of the preservation of the Halo franchise, and it is absolutely the right place to do it, but it also means that to do that you have to give it the justice it deserves, not arbirarily change certain aspects around the game because you don't like it. Preservation matters, not what you think is modern or better. These games went down in history the way they are for a reason, it's not worth trying to "fix" them.

I get that missing features and improvements are coming later but that misses the point. There shouldnt be a wait, these features should be available at the time of release.
This is the chance for a new generation to get into the franchise we grew to love, and spent 10~ years (CE to Reach) growing up with, MCC is the perfect chance to pass the baton onto the new generation of Halo fans.

The core game may still be solid, but the out-of-gameplay systems are what facilitated a lot of that experience to exist in the first place. It enabled a style of gameplay to exist, and a community to build around it, and if it can no longer enables that to exist then we are doing an injustice to not only the fans but to those who finaly have a chance to experience it for the first time

This series deserves better. It deserves the treatment it had back in its hayday. We don't need 343's incessant desire to rewrite everything bungie did right.

Squad is by far one of the best experiences I've had in gaming. The best comparison I can make is to call it the only true sequel to Battlefield 2. It takes BF2, and more importantly Project Reality and decides it's a good idea to dope it up on steroids.

Get a squad together with friends, pay attention, play as a team, learn the nuances and you will have experiences you could never have elsewhere. Not in modern Battlefield, Not in CoD, Not in ARMA.

These devs support all the support in the world for the love and dedication they've put into creating this experience without compromising their vision for sake of mass market appeal.

Easily the best remake/remaster of a game I've ever seen. This is what I've been waiting for all these "HD Collections" to be, not just porting them to [modern platform] and letting them run in 1080p, and there's no games more deserving of a PROPER remake. If you were ever a fan of Homeworld, get this, it's fantastic.

Assetto Corsa is nothing short of a fantastic racing sim, however this does mean that it really is a simulator, it's not trackmania. The game is best experienced with a proper wheel/pedal setup, but a controller or keyboard will play just fine.

It's one of the best wins for early access, in all honesty.

You build rockets (And spaceplanes) and crash them, then learn from your mistakes, then do it all over again, and again. It's pretty excellent.

Simply put, this game is fantastic. It was directed by Kim Swift, one of the original Narbacular Drop team from Digipen, that went onto Valve to lead the original Portal.

It oozes charm and love, the same way Portal did. Very well written humour, fantastic physics puzzles and great polish overall.

I highly recommend the buy.