Halo: Combat Evolved/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • And the Fandom Rejoiced: Anniversary.
  • Best Level Ever: Silent Cartographer, Assault on the Control Room and The Maw are probably the best ones, though the only really bad level is The Library.
  • Demonic Spiders:
    • Flood with rocket launchers are an endless source of cheap death.
    • Although Hunters are easy on foot, while driving the Scorpion on "Assault on the Control Room", they can become a problem. Especially while you're dealing with other stuff such as Wraiths and Ghosts.
    • The remake actually turns Spec Ops Elites into this; the graphics make their camo a lot more effective.
  • Disappointing Last Level: For some, the last three levels were this because of Back Tracking. Though many still consider "Two Betrayals" and "The Maw" among the best levels.
  • Fanon: The second SPARTAN in campaign co-op is generally believed to be Noble Six by fans, had he escaped Reach. Before that, (and still currently the most accepted fanon due to Noble Six being a Spartan-III, and therefore unable to effectively wear the full-on version of the MJOLNIR MK V armor seen in-game) the consensus was that it was Linda-058, who canonically was in cryo on board the Pillar of Autumn during the game.
  • Game Breaker:
    • Punch-Packing Pistol. The pistol is more powerful than the sniper rifle in practical usage. There are rumors that someone at Bungie accidently slid the damage power up immediately before the game was sent to production. These rumors came to be because they said this in one of the VERY early Weekly Updates. One of the first things stated about the Anniversary remake is that the pistol will remain completely unchanged in power and accuracy. And boy, is that ever true. Needless to say, the pistol got Nerfed in the sequels, which has provoked some They Changed It, Now It Sucks responses.
    • The bandana skull from Anniversary tears the game to ribbons. While there's the obvious problem with shotguns, Sniper rifles and rocket launchers, the real breaker is infinite grenades. In a game filled to the brim with tight spaces and walkways the player can chuck grenades like mad with little need to aim. Add Grunt Funeral for extra power. Most of the achievements are still attainable with it too. In fact, you can use it to make one of the achievments (which requires you to beat a level on Heroic with three skulls on) a cinch.
    • The PC/Mac port made the Banshee available in multiplayer, with its Fuel Rod Gun intact. The latter is what particularly makes it a Game Breaker, due to its unlimited ammo, being fired from a high vantage point, flipping ground vehicles with ease, and just plain wasting infantry. It does have a somewhat slow rate of fire, but one well-aimed shot is generally all it takes to ruin someone's day.
  • Goddamned Bats: The Flood in general. Especially on "The Library".
  • Harsher in Hindsight: Cortnana's angry retort, "We have enough dead heroes!" at Keyes gains a lot of gravitas after playing Halo: Reach.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: Considering just how much the EU expanded, and how far the games went, the final words of the campaign:

Cortana: It's over...
Master Chief: No, I think we're just getting started.

  • Iron Woobie: Guilty Spark, according to the Terminals. He waited for 100,000 years alone on his ring, refusing to leave despite his loneliness and risk that the Flood might break out or that his ring might fall into disarray. He went crazy.
  • Lady Mondegreen: Combat Evolved introduced to us "Dustin Echoes", after a line where Cortana responds that all that's left is "just dust and echoes". Bungie even joked about this on their commentary for the cutscenes!
  • The Scrappy: 343 Guilty Spark. Many people were glad that you got to kill him at the end of Halo 3.
  • That One Achievement: Anniversary adds several difficult Achievements, but the worst would have to be "Speed Reader". It involves completing The Library on on Legendary in 30 minutes or less.
  • That One Level:
    • The Library is long, repetitive, full of Flood, dark and you can lose your way easily. Plus you have to deal with Guilty Spark for the whole level.
    • The indoor segments of "Assault on the Control Room" have you go through several long identical looking hallways. Not only is it boring, but it is very easy to get turned around and go back the way you came.
    • The indoor segments of "Two Betrayals", which is "Assault on the Control Room" going in the other direction.
      • The above two are fine if you know how to read the floor arrows. What takes the cake in "Two Betrayals" is Pulse Generator 2. Up to four rocket-wielding combat forms can be among the 20 that jump you just as you're making the required shield overload. The nearest health pack is all the way at the bottom of the canyon outside, so have fun reverting if you've anything less than full health.
    • The last section of "The Maw" requires you to drive a Warthog along an obstacle course against the clock. If you find the Warthog hard to control, this is rather annoying. And when you finally reach the target, the pickup transport for which you have been waiting crashes, and you have to reach another target, within the original time limit, which may result in having to start all over again. Which is also rather annoying.
    • Multiplayer has Chiron TL-34. The sheer number of teleporters (which would be phased out by Halo 3 due to camping concerns) led to a super-confusing map that has virtually no gameplay flow. Bungie acknowledged this and teased a "Chiron TL-35" during Halo 3 as a joke.
  • What Do You Mean It's Not Political?: After the end of Apartheid in South Africa, the new multi-racial government set up the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate human rights abuses under the old regime. In Halo, the multi-racial Covenant have a ship called the Truth And Reconciliation. Draw your own conclusions.