A warning to new Halo players regarding story spoilers for Halo 1 and 2.

[Falleax]

For all you new Halo players who will be coming in for PC, please take heed of this warning if you care about the story.

In Halo Combat Evolved's Anniversary mode, there are some terminals you can activate to get some extra lore.

Do not watch these on your first playthrough.

They contain heavy story spoilers and introduce certain plot twists and characters far too early. These terminals do not appear if you play with the original graphics mode enabled, only the anniversary graphics.

As for Halo 2, a new cut scene was added in before the first original scene. This scene is effectively an advertisement for Halo 5 and just tells you an important story twist of Halo 2 right off the bat. If you see a cut scene of a Covenant ship flying through some orange clouds, this is what I'm referring to, I recommend you skip it.

[Jebus]

I would recommend playing with original graphics for Halo Combat Evolved on your first playthrough regardless.

The entire atmosphere of the level 343 guilty spark changes completely.
I would post a video explaining it in detail, but at that point you'd be spoiled anyways.

Dont be afraid of the terminals in halo 2 though.
Honestly in most cases they expand on knowledge you get during the game.
Which is quite interesting.

Unless im forgetting some spoilers in those.

[Falleax]

Originally posted by Jebus™:

I would recommend playing with original graphics for Halo Combat Evolved on your first playthrough regardless.

The entire atmosphere of the level 343 guilty spark changes completely.
I would post a video explaining it in detail, but at that point you'd be spoiled anyways.

Dont be afraid of the terminals in halo 2 though.
Honestly in most cases they expand on knowledge you get during the game.
Which is quite interesting.

Unless im forgetting some spoilers in those.

Yeah, this is good advice as well. I forgot to mention that the terminals for Halo 1 are intended for veteran players who want some new lore, not new players.

[Rampage]

Originally posted by Jebus™:

I would recommend playing with original graphics for Halo Combat Evolved on your first playthrough regardless.

The entire atmosphere of the level 343 guilty spark changes completely.
I would post a video explaining it in detail, but at that point you'd be spoiled anyways.

Dont be afraid of the terminals in halo 2 though.
Honestly in most cases they expand on knowledge you get during the game.
Which is quite interesting.

Unless im forgetting some spoilers in those.

The problem with this is that these aren't the original graphics, but rather a broken version of the original. It's actually quite interesting how CE's original look is being forgotten. A good video on the topic is Late Night Gaming's video "How Combat Evolved was downgraded on MCC | How the original vision is being lost to time" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6nZPrMSu0w

[staryoshi06]

Originally posted by Rampage:

Originally posted by Jebus™:

I would recommend playing with original graphics for Halo Combat Evolved on your first playthrough regardless.

The entire atmosphere of the level 343 guilty spark changes completely.
I would post a video explaining it in detail, but at that point you'd be spoiled anyways.

Dont be afraid of the terminals in halo 2 though.
Honestly in most cases they expand on knowledge you get during the game.
Which is quite interesting.

Unless im forgetting some spoilers in those.

The problem with this is that these aren't the original graphics, but rather a broken version of the original. It's actually quite interesting how CE's original look is being forgotten. A good video on the topic is Late Night Gaming's video "How Combat Evolved was downgraded on MCC | How the original vision is being lost to time" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6nZPrMSu0w

343 said they'd work on that.

[Kickyoace]

im not saying to torrent but find a copy of the original disc and download any compatibility patches to play CE as was intended also if you stick it on a flash drive if you are school age you could play it there when on free time XD

[Falleax]

Bumping this thread because it's relevant now and I don't want to make it again.

[Define Brackish Water]

I never bothered with the terminals in CEA. The first one I find (the obvious one in The Silent Cartographer) is so overly long and so completely breaks the pacing that I never try to get the rest of them. Are they really that bad? I always thought they were better off as shorts or mini-episodes to space out a TV series.

[Cooperal]

I didn't know to look for terminals in Anniversary, so when I found the terminal in Truth and Reconciliation I thought to myself "Phew good thing I already knew what all of this is about."

But then again it's spoilers for a 19 year old game. And if you joined the franchise at any later point you will still be made familiar with the purpose of Halo.
It's not quite as well known as the identity of Luke Skywalker's father, but among gaming it's going to be one of the closer things to it.

It's difficult to talk about the trilogy in its entirety without giving away CEs major twists. Even to just google Halo.

[Define Brackish Water]

Originally posted by Cooperal:

I didn't know to look for terminals in Anniversary, so when I found the terminal in Truth and Reconciliation I thought to myself "Phew good thing I already knew what all of this is about."

But then again it's spoilers for a 19 year old game. And if you joined the franchise at any later point you will still be made familiar with the purpose of Halo.
It's not quite as well known as the identity of Luke Skywalker's father, but among gaming it's going to be one of the closer things to it.

It's difficult to talk about the trilogy in its entirety without giving away CEs major twists. Even to just google Halo.

The Star Wars prequel movies spoiled the twist in the original trilogy but also added in their own twist to compensate. I don't know the merit of the CEA terminals but if they suck then I'm going to be super disappointed.