Latest / It Just Works! / #224 "55 hours later here's my final verdict on Halo Campaign Evolved"
Transcript
- 0:02[SPEAKER_01]: This is Steve Downs, the voice of Master Chief, Spartan 1-1-7, with an incoming message for Ryan Green and all who listen to the podcast, it just works.
- 0:16[SPEAKER_01]: Let's finish the fight.
- 0:19[SPEAKER_01]: Listen up.
- 0:20[SPEAKER_01]: Chief.
- 0:20[SPEAKER_01]: Out.
- 0:21[SPEAKER_00]: Hello everyone and welcome to the Adjusted First Podcasts.
- 0:23[SPEAKER_00]: I'm your host Ryan and today is
- 0:26[SPEAKER_00]: Potentially the finale of talking about Halo Campaign of all, at least that launch, we're waiting to see if there's any content updates down the road.
- 0:34[SPEAKER_00]: But I really wanted to kind of give my final thoughts on it at its launch state, 50 hours and every single achievement unlocked.
- 0:42[SPEAKER_00]: I totally cheesed LASO because if you play by yourself and you die, you literally restart the mission.
- 0:50[SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of crazy and annoying and I just, I couldn't be bothered.
- 0:55[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so do with that information what you will.
- 1:01[SPEAKER_00]: The only reason why I didn't mind doing it is I don't unlock anything for the achievement besides the points itself.
- 1:07[SPEAKER_00]: So.
- 1:08[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I didn't really feel like I wasn't a complete disgrace.
- 1:10[SPEAKER_00]: But anyways, 50 hours in, I wanted to talk about it and kind of just give my final thoughts where we stand, you know, my time played from where we first talked about it, 20 hours in, to where we are now.
- 1:24[SPEAKER_00]: We also had a report come out from Mr. Reb's gaming, so shout out to him.
- 1:27[SPEAKER_00]: Please check out Reb's gaming on YouTube.
- 1:30[SPEAKER_00]: I will have the video linked in the description of this podcast as a source, but basically he was kind of touching on the troubled development of this game, which every Halo game, every single Halo game.
- 1:41[SPEAKER_00]: If you didn't know ladies and gentlemen has had troubled and crunch everything you can imagine when it comes to development issues, every single Halo, even your favorite one.
- 1:52[SPEAKER_00]: Cut content, which is just routine.
- 1:54[SPEAKER_00]: There's cut songs.
- 1:55[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, everything has deleted something in media.
- 1:58[SPEAKER_00]: But Halo is a consistent offender of this to the point where the game that comes out is probably not the game a lot of us imagined or lacking what should be there because of a change in direction or a fault in leadership and sure enough.
- 2:15[SPEAKER_00]: Halo Campaign Evolved is not accompanied by the same year with Project Echo because pure high hints, the current director of Halo Studios, who is a part of the team and partially the man who saved MCC after its horrible launch, don't know how things went wrong, but basically there was a studio helping with the development of Halo Campaign Evolved with level design concept,
- 2:42[SPEAKER_00]: from bringing it to concept to actually blocking it out as rep said and kind of just literally laying down the groundwork well that studio had a hard time getting used to the blam engine which if you didn't know is the private proprietary engine from bungee's in-house in-house tech well none of the extraction extraction people oh my god i cannot talk
- 3:05[SPEAKER_00]: work at Bungie or did.
- 3:08[SPEAKER_00]: So basically they had a hard time developing the game with the Blam Engine and combining it with Unreal Engine 5.
- 3:14[SPEAKER_00]: So that led to a prolonged start to development, but also halfway through the project, Halo Studios decided to let that studio go in terms of this Halo project and just do everything in-house.
- 3:32[SPEAKER_00]: shortly before this about a year ago before this virtual so who helped make Elder Scrolls I believe in remaster with Bethesda picked up extraction and then they get cut off from Halo Studios and then they go back to being independent.
- 3:47[SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of crazy but basically
- 3:49[SPEAKER_00]: Because of this studio being cut out of development, Project Ecker, which has been long known as Project Anaga, literally, I think since the launch of Halo Infinite, was basically canceled from here, hence, to go all hands on deck and completely focus on Halo campaign evolved.
- 4:06[SPEAKER_00]: And for the last nine months leading up to launch about last week, official launch, last week, they were hard at work on Halo campaign evolved, with so many things left on the board to get done.
- 4:19[SPEAKER_00]: just the ship a product.
- 4:20[SPEAKER_00]: And so the biggest thing for me is just giving you a lot of props to the developers out there as they deserve all the credit in the world for their immense work.
- 4:30[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, getting...
- 4:31[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, yeah, it's just the campaign, but getting it out the way it is, and shipped in nine months to so many fans is pretty nuts.
- 4:39[SPEAKER_00]: It is unfortunate that it has the
- 4:44[SPEAKER_00]: And that is essentially why we don't have Firefight and multiplayer or a multiplayer project in Echir because this game went south and it's game had to come out Which I agree I think this game this game needed to happen for the anniversary They wanted people to be a part of this anniversary with Xbox and Halo 25 years of Halo and Xbox So it's a pretty big deal.
- 5:05[SPEAKER_00]: I understand wanting to get this project out
- 5:08[SPEAKER_00]: It just sucks when you think about at what cost get again Leadership does not know how to manage product get these projects out on time and Ship to the fans and give these developers something to be really proud of beyond What they currently did, but even more so just launching a full product
- 5:26[SPEAKER_00]: And it's really a shame because essentially, again, the developers and the fans are the ones that lose at the end of the day, not the people in leadership who for some reason get to keep their jobs after such a colossal failure.
- 5:38[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I understand that it may stay exact and no one's perfect, but we're talking about failures that could have been seen along the way.
- 5:44[SPEAKER_00]: And with 343 now being Halo Studios and some respect a lot of the same people, but different leadership.
- 5:50[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, how are we still doing the same things wrong?
- 5:52[SPEAKER_00]: I do not understand it.
- 5:55[SPEAKER_00]: And it's very frustrating to me because it's like, you know, again, when you think about where this game launched, you needed more optimization, could it use better writing for the pre-cool mission, could it use the multiplayer, multiplayer in this game would have gone off, you literally had all the maps in the game modes right there in your hands.
- 6:14[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe add a few new maps for each prequel mission, you know, maybe two each, right?
- 6:19[SPEAKER_00]: Firefight pretty much a given.
- 6:22[SPEAKER_00]: I don't understand How we keep running into the same You know, they seem the same paths of just failing miserably and it's so annoying and Very frustrating for me.
- 6:33[SPEAKER_00]: I
- 6:34[SPEAKER_00]: But as I said at the top, I want to talk about this game from from my perspective 50 hours in every single achievement unlocked so many amazing memories already made because I've been streaming the whole experience and Honestly like I still think this game's a nine out of ten.
- 6:49[SPEAKER_00]: I still love this game so much and a lot of it Sure, I guess you could just chalk it up to nostalgia, but yeah, I like You already know it's gonna be nostalgic because it's in this nostalgic project and
- 7:01[SPEAKER_00]: but for it to come out the way I did and completely make me just remind me of why I love this game so much through the level design, the soundtrack, the voice acting, the characters,
- 7:15[SPEAKER_00]: the being on the ring itself and crashing on it, you know, there's just so many memories with this game that come flooded to me as I'm playing it, but also feel completely new because of the gameplay mechanics, some of the weapons being added like the S&G is in the regular campaign where it wasn't in the game at all, but they made sure to add it in the regular, where some weapons were only in the prequels, and
- 7:40[SPEAKER_00]: I just think they did such a good job of just keeping things fresh.
- 7:44[SPEAKER_00]: Assault on the control room has a brand new layout and some aspects, some rooms are completely different.
- 7:50[SPEAKER_00]: The library is not the same level you remember.
- 7:53[SPEAKER_00]: There is parts of it though that they kept the same and I think that was smart.
- 7:57[SPEAKER_00]: There's a couple of things that I would have done slightly differently, for instance, in the library.
- 8:01[SPEAKER_00]: There's elevators you go down, and in the old games, they're like these giant obelisk-type huge elevators.
- 8:09[SPEAKER_00]: And in this one, they're just the fucking haylots you've gone to look.
- 8:12[SPEAKER_00]: and maybe they did that for lore aspects to be more in line with the Halo 2 Harrod Sick Missions, where you place the arbiter and you go up a gondola, I mean it's literally the same room basically, and for that I can actually appreciate it more, but there is a lot of things in this game that are different in the best way possible when it comes to the original campaign.
- 8:35[SPEAKER_00]: it gives it a whole new life feels completely fresh and the sandbox having some additional weapons really makes it fun to play so if you're still on the fence of this game i cannot recommend it enough i think that if you're a halo fan you're gonna be right at home playing one of your favorite campaigns and experiences
- 8:55[SPEAKER_00]: that unfortunately, doesn't have multiplayer and firefight, does have the four player co-op, does have the local split screen co-op on consoles, has 42 schools in the game, three prequel missions, and the replay abilities there.
- 9:10[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I couldn't get the 50 hours if the game wasn't fun.
- 9:12[SPEAKER_00]: First of all,
- 9:14[SPEAKER_00]: I just did a podcast recently, if you listen on the Star Fox remake, that is a one-to-one almost remake of Star Fox 64 with some additional cutscenes for the first time ever, but other than that, like the gameplays verbatim, like pretty much the same thing.
- 9:32[SPEAKER_00]: Whereas this game takes the same campaign, but gives it a whole new coat, but also adds things that are different, like Star
- 9:41[SPEAKER_00]: The first mission is exactly the same.
- 9:43[SPEAKER_00]: It just looks stunning, which I love that game by the way But I only have like 15 to 20 hours on that game.
- 9:49[SPEAKER_00]: Halo Infinite, or I'm sorry.
- 9:50[SPEAKER_00]: Halo.
- 9:51[SPEAKER_00]: Halo.
- 9:51[SPEAKER_00]: Halo.
- 9:52[SPEAKER_00]: Campaign of all, but yeah, it does just play a little bit like Halo Infinite
- 9:56[SPEAKER_00]: Halo campaign of all there's only been out for two weeks to mark a Wednesday and I already have 50 hours on to it So that just tells you a lot about one how much of a Halo fan I am clearly it's it's all over the place But also how fun the game is and 50 hours in that's where I'm at with the game
- 10:14[SPEAKER_00]: I do think that the prequel missions are really fun.
- 10:17[SPEAKER_00]: I kind of played them a couple more times since the last podcast I recorded.
- 10:21[SPEAKER_00]: However, I just can't shake the feeling that the writing with the Williams, the ODSC character is just poor as hell.
- 10:27[SPEAKER_00]: In the lore, ODSCs are not fans of the Spartans, especially at this point in the lore.
- 10:34[SPEAKER_00]: That is true, and I understand her disdain for Master Chief being like a PR campaign, because essentially the Spartans were created to shut down the insurrectionists.
- 10:42[SPEAKER_00]: However, I just feel like the way they wrote her character was just kind of lame.
- 10:48[SPEAKER_00]: Personally, for me, it's lame.
- 10:50[SPEAKER_00]: The cutscene at the end, where she's sitting on top of dead bodies with her crew.
- 10:54[SPEAKER_00]: I thought it was so cheesy and not necessarily earned or the right place for this game.
- 11:03[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like, I don't know, I wasn't a fan.
- 11:07[SPEAKER_00]: I think she's fine.
- 11:08[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's a cool character, but I just think the way they wrote her lines is just not...
- 11:14[SPEAKER_00]: not where they could be especially anything of like dare even Sarah Palmer had some annoying lines but there was still something there Cortana's been sassy her you know basically the whole franchise but they did it right to where it felt fine it didn't feel like annoying so I don't know same thing i said in the first podcast like the level three four three guilty spark but mom the very last mission the game
- 11:38[SPEAKER_00]: Like some of these levels just look so beautiful and gorgeous that you can't help but go like oh my god I can't believe this is real So yeah, that's basically my final take on the game And I really hope it gets content updates and
- 11:53[SPEAKER_00]: you know, we get firefight at the very least down the road.
- 11:56[SPEAKER_00]: I think there's a huge missed opportunity there with some kind of replayability with friends and people online.
- 12:03[SPEAKER_00]: It definitely needs score attack, time trial or like a timer, so speedrunners can time themselves in-game and create leaderboards.
- 12:13[SPEAKER_00]: We should have campaign playlists like MCC kind of like have fun with things, but that's I don't know that's essentially what campaign remix is meant to be.
- 12:21[SPEAKER_00]: Which is still a really good game mode by the way because some levels get really annoying because I'm how many sort of leads there are, but it it and it still adds something to to the game and makes it more fun to
- 12:33[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, that's my final review and thoughts on Halo campaign evolve for the time being.
- 12:40[SPEAKER_00]: I like the game.
- 12:41[SPEAKER_00]: I think again, you should try it if you're a fan.
- 12:44[SPEAKER_00]: I hope all of you enjoy this podcast.
- 12:47[SPEAKER_00]: I can't wait to talk to you about some future episodes I have planned.
- 12:50[SPEAKER_00]: We got Spider-Man.
- 12:51[SPEAKER_00]: I've already watched it twice.
- 12:52[SPEAKER_00]: I think the movie's amazing.
- 12:53[SPEAKER_00]: Go see it.
- 12:55[SPEAKER_00]: We have Pokemon Polka PADLC, the first expansion coming out this Wednesday.
- 13:00[SPEAKER_00]: We also have Gears of War, E Day, the Beta, starting on Thursday and then some other episodes I have planned down the road, so please.
- 13:10[SPEAKER_00]: keep an eye out make sure you subscribe follow all that fun stuff so all media on the podcast if you liked what you heard so far please consider leaving a review on whatever platform you're listening to this on if you have any questions you'd like me to answer please email them hit me up on TikTok or Instagram at it just works podcast and I can't wait to talk to you guys again I hope you have a great week great day great night and I'll see you on the next episode