In what was supposed to be
a love letter to fans, Halo: The Master Chief Collection has turned out to be a
great disservice to those who have loved and followed the franchise for years.
It’s been almost two weeks since its release and, even with one huge patch, the
game is broken on a colossal scale. I understand that it must have been hard to
compile four games into one and making it so we can relive the Halo CE and Halo
2 games in online multiplayer again and for that I’m truly grateful. But that
doesn’t excuse the fact that they pushed this game out the door with so many
issues that it truly baffles me that it made it past quality assurance. Here
are the issues I’ve personally seen since Halo released last Tuesday and that’s
including the recent patch.
-Insanely long wait times to find a match. Every now and then I can get a match within minutes,
but after that game is over I usually
have to wait 10-15 to find another
suitable game. Hell, even when you find a game there
are issues.
-The match has been found, teams have been set, but the game never starts. It pretends to start
and just as I get fed up and ready to
leave it takes us to a post game
carnage report that states the match was incomplete.
No shit. It never even started.
-Uneven teams. This is probably the most annoying thing to come across. You wait as long as you
do to get a game only to wind up on a
team of four going against a team of six.
Halo CE through Halo 3 are all multiplayer
games that rely heavily on teamwork, weapon
control, and map control. You have no idea how
easy it is to gain weapon and map control when you out number the other team by even one person. Not all is lost. I’ve been playing team slayer a lot
and I have won a decent share of games
when we were out numbered, but I’ve lost
even more. This is also not to say that
I haven’t been on the team with more people, but
even that is less fun because it’s all too easy to dominate the other squad. So you can either take your chances and get walloped or you can be the
one doing the walloping, regardless,
it makes for a game not as fun as I
remember.
-Halo CE and Halo 2 seem to have issues with registering shots on other players. I’m not
sure if this is because someone in
the match is hosting the game, even
though we’re supposed to be on dedicated servers,
or if it’s an actual issue with the game. In
Halo CE I’ve peppered entire clips of a pistol into someone’s head and detonated a grenade right at their feet and they just walked away unharmed while
I faced a cold and brutal defeat. The
beautiful thing about the Xbox One is
that I can now record proof of things like
this when they happen, and I have. Halo 2 it’s less
noticeable but it’s still there. Same scenario where
it takes more than it should to kill someone.
-Getting friends into your lobby is a freaking pain in the ass. More often than not we’ve had to
completely reset Halo in order for
this to work. I’ll accept a game
invite and wait minutes before being dragged into the game, if it takes me at all, or it tells me that it failed. Once you are in a group I’ve
found wait times to be much longer
than if I were searching by myself.
Hell, any of the issues I stated before this become
more annoying when you’re with a group of people.
Especially if you can’t find a game and you have
to back out to restart the search because…
-Every time your party leader has to back out of a search or tries to back out after the
completion of a game, the whole party
is split up and you must then go through
the trouble of getting back together. This seems
to be a tiny bit better since the patch, but it’s
still troublesome enough to mention here.
-I’ve experienced a one second delay in campaign that makes shooting, melee, and diving for cover
simply pointless. I have only played
one level and I was connected to a friend
of mine who was hosting the game, so I’m
not sure if it was a straight up lag issue
or not. I’ll have to test out the mission again by myself to see if I experience the same thing.
So there you have it, all
those issues are just what I’ve experienced, but if you care enough to read
this you’ll know that there are dozens of other issues that people are having.
Hell, if you look at 343’s patch notes it was such an ungodly long list of crap
that truly has baffled me. How does a game have this much wrong with it and they
didn’t catch it before it came out? It feels like a cash grab that was rushed
out before it was ready and that is truly disappointing to me. I love Halo and
have been a huge fan since the first day I’ve played it. I have the all the
Halo related soundtracks, novels, and comics. Hell I even purchased the
legendary edition of Halo 3 that came with a statue of Master Chief’s helmet.
So when I’m told by other fans to suck it up and wait, it pisses me off.
Prepare yourself for a rant on how much I hate apologists.
First off, stop
apologizing for 343. You people do not owe this company anything and they most
certainly do not owe you anything. Granted, I say kudos to them for fixing
their game, or attempting to, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to sit back and
take it lying down like Jody Foster in The Accused. They don’t have to fix the
multiplayer issues if they don’t want to. Hell we all already forked over our
cash to them for a broken game. Luckily they want to sell Halo 5 next year and
they most certainly need to save face here. But people on the Internet are so
annoying about this. You cannot complain about the game being broken without
being called an impatient noob. Seriously? I paid money for a broken game that
I have wanted to play since the day it was announced but I can’t because it’s
broken and that makes me impatient? How about I’m pissed because I feel duped.
More and more these days companies are releasing broken games and the
apologists are saying, “hey guys, relax while they fix it, go play something
else,” or “it’s only sixty bucks, are you that broke?”
That’s not the point. No
I’m not broke and I’m not impatient. When I hand my money over for a product, I
expect that product to work. I wouldn’t have minded waiting a few extra months
for them to polish this game before releasing it, but the fact that I can load
it up and still not play it is very frustrating. What if you purchased a car
that promised you an amazing CD player or heated seats or something and they
didn’t work? I bet money you’d throw a fit over it and would be back at that
dealership to raise hell. You wouldn’t be all content with waiting weeks after
your purchase for them to fix what they promised to give you in the first place.
The same goes for phones, tablets, and whatever other technological product you
bought that didn’t work as advertised. This isn’t like going to McDonalds and
not getting the extra fries you asked for.
What these apologists
don’t understand is that it’s not about the money we spend on the product; it’s
about our relationship with the people who create these things we love so much.
If they release a broken product and you’re content with them and patient while
they iron it out, then why wouldn’t they just continue to do that for future
games? We already see enough day one patches for every game that is released
and that tells me they ship games that aren’t finished in the first place. Sure
those day one patches usually fix issues we’ll never see, but that is obviously
not always the case. So if we stand idly by why developers do this kind of
stuff then we’re saying it’s okay for them to continually do it in the future
and it’s not. Raise hell like people did with the Mass Effect 3 ending that
caused Bioware to release a free extended cut. Raise hell like people did when
Microsoft threatened to impose unwanted restrictions on your gaming with the
Xbox One that caused them to do away with them. We have a voice people! Use it.
So by now you’re probably
wondering why I haven’t returned the game and I’m sure this will make me sound
like a hypocrite, but it’s fun. When I can actually get into a game with even
teams it’s fun as hell and takes me back to ten years ago when I was in my
first year of college. All I would do is go to school, hit up my part time job,
and play Halo 2 until I passed out. All those amazing LAN parties I had with
family and friends can now be re-lived and I Just want it to work the way it
was advertised. I will not buy Halo 5 unless there is a way I can snag it for
free. I WILL NOT give 343 any more of my money until they can prove they can
make a game that isn’t broken upon release. I know it’s going to be super hard
for me to do that when the time comes because I’m sure this whole thing will be
resolved and put behind us, but I have to make a statement to them and every
other company. I won’t buy games anymore until I know they released and are
functionally working. With that being said, I’m going to go enjoy more Sunset
Overdrive because at least that game has been working since the moment I
downloaded it. I’ll try writing a blog about that game because MY GOD it’s
amazing.
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