Metareview: Halo: The Master Chief Collection

Halo again! That's either a greeting or a statement of fact, your choice. Halo: The Master Chief Collection includes four revamped Halo games in a bundle of nostalgia for Halo fans, while offering a handy jumping-in point for players new to the series.

We gave The Master Chief Collection a near-perfect review, noting that a facelift can't save Halo 2's poor level design, and the new matchmaking system is fairly abysmal at the moment. However, we found the new cut scenes and gameplay upgrades to be extremely satisfying (it's still Halo, after all), and our review concludes with, "For newcomers looking to see what all the fuss is about, Halo is as vibrant now as it was a decade ago, and The Master Chief Collection is essential."

Much of the online critic community seems to agree with our assessment; head below to see scores from across the web.

• Game Informer (9.25/10): "Master Chief Collection raises the bar for remastered compilations by allowing players to experience these games as they really were, and how our memory has colored them over the years. Whatever your main incentive for getting The Master Chief Collection may be – replay the story, relive the multiplayer – you won't be disappointed with this revival."

• USGamer (4.5/5): "343 Studios and company have done about as good a job as they possibly could in putting this package together, even going so far as to dig up maps from the PC version of Halo: CE for inclusion in the multiplayer. In every way that matters, The Master Chief Collection exceeds expectations, and that can be said for both the single-player and the multiplayer. [Assuming] multiplayer connectivity issues don't creep up, it's a worthy tribute to the series that served to define multiplayer shooters in the early 2000s."

• GamesBeat (91/100): "Despite some technical issues that haunt the overall experience, they're small footnotes, quickly forgotten as the next dramatic bump in the Master Chief's journey demands your attention. Halo: The Master Chief Collection is, at least for the time being, the definitive Halo experience and well worth that attention."

• Polygon (9.5/10): "Halo: The Master Chief Collection sets a bar that other remasters and collections will have difficulty reaching, much less topping. For players new to Halo, who have missed any of the included games, it is a stunning introduction to one of the most beloved series in video games. For Halo fans, it's a package that shows almost as much respect and affection for the Master Chief as they do."

• GamesRadar (4.5/5): "Despite prioritising out-of-place technical revisions over the series' chronological integrity – and thus throwing coherence out of whack with Halo 2's presentation – the freeform, mix-and match approach taken to the collection's structure is perhaps the closest we'll ever get to a real-world realisation of the imagined Halo ideal. Able to finally play all of Halo, take it apart, rebuild it, and remix it to our own tastes, we can now play both Halo as it was made, and Halo as it exists in our minds. That's a hell of a good thing."

[Image: 343 Industries]