3/5 ★ – SwiftShift's review of Halo: Combat Evolved.

I'm not gonna lie, this was a bit of a pain to get through at times, but I still feel like it was still a relatively positive experience, albeit a bit of a rollercoaster. Starting things off, Pillar of Autumn was a great tutorial, although it did use some mechanics that were never brought up again, such as busting open broken doors with a melee, but I can't really blame it on this mission. However, this mission started the trend of CE making it's missions labyrinthian in design, and I REALLY don't like that aspect of the game. 9/10 Next, Arrival on Halo was a rather enjoyable mission. The start where you get the opportunity to take out the distant grunts and elites with the admittedly overpowered pistol was amazing, but after that it got gradually worse. That section where you have to stay at that structure waiting for evac went on for WAY too long, and every underground section was a pain due to how hard it was to tell where you're supposed to go. Finally, the Warthog's controls SUCK. 6.5/10 Truth and Reconcilliation was awesome. Being able to stealth the entire first section was great, and being given a constant supply of UNSC troops was such a godsend due to how easily they die. The only negatives I can think of were the typical patchy level design and the Keyes escort mission section due to how unpredictable he is. 8/10 The Silent Cartographer wasn't the best. Bad Warthog controls and annoying level design and enemy AI trouble it, but there was nothing too offensive about it. 5/10 Assault on the Control Room was bad. There's no other way of going about it. WAY too long, sections repeated too many times to count and infuriating enemy placement. The only positive I can give it is that the final section was awesome, using the rocket launcher and flying around in a banshee were major highlights. 3/10 343 Guilty Spark wasn't too bad. The Flood had an awesome introduction, but aside from that there wasn't really anything else to note. 6/10 The Library was god-awful. 343 Guilty Spark didn't know when to shut up, terrible level design, WAY too many enemies, WAY, WAY too much waiting, and just all around boringness. At least it looked... OK, I guess?1/10 Two Betrayals was just as bad. It's just Assault on the Control Room backwards, but it's even longer as you have to hop from room to room blowing up reactors. Oh, and Flood with rocket launchers. 'Nuff said. 1/10 Keyes was a subtle improvement over the last two missions. Suffers from the INSANE amount of Flood The Library suffered from, sure, but hey, it wasn't reused or a total snoozefest. There was one really tedious section at the end, but that's about it. Oh yeah, starting in this mission, Covenant throw grenades now. Coolio. 6/10 Wow, what a great sendoff The Maw was. Great backdrop for the final mission. Reused assets used CORRECTLY. Great enemy interactions that felt very climactic. A pretty cool diffusion sequence, although maybe a little too overwhelming. An amazing final escape sequence, albeit very cheesy. 10/10 Overall, good game bogged down by some VERY dated design choices.