Halo CE: Multiplayer Guide

Tired of respawning in HCE Multiplayer? Then read this.

Introduction

This guide was created with the intent of helping brand new players become better at the game. Of all the Halo versions released to date in my opinion Halo CE has the largest skill gap and if you learn what I have posted in this guide it could help save countless seconds of respawning.

Regarding multiplayer there are two main versions of the game: the original Xbox version of the PC version. Halo 1 on MCC is a port of the PC version of the game and I will note differences between the two versions throughout the guide.

Powerups

Camo - Cloaks you for 45 seconds after picking it up. The camo on this game is much more effective than some of the later Halos and if you have a choice between setting up for the camo or OS the camo should be your priority. NOTE: On the PC version of the game, a glitch exists where if you stand on a new camo right as your old camo expires you will pick up the new camo but it won't properly apply to your character. On the PC version it's best to wait until you decloak a bit and then pick up the new camo so you can evade this glitch (this glitch is not present on the original xbox version)

Overshield - Triples the strength of your shield. The shield will slowly deplete back to its normal strength so its recommended that you charge into battle right away after obtaining it to maximize its effectiveness. While the over shield is charging you are immune to all damage and can only die to an assassination. Be warned: unlike later Halos in Halo CE there is no visual indication to signal you that an opponent has the OS.

Tips & Tricks

Assassination – Not a true trick but I wanted to mention this in case someone brand new jumps into a game without taking the time to read up on the instructions. If you manage to melee an enemy in the back, it will result in an immediate kill for you, regardless of your opponents remaining shield/health. You can even kill an opponent who just recently picked up an OS that hasn’t fully charged yet. A word of advice – going for the back-whack kill isn’t always ideal and some percentage of the time if you are in this type of situation you are better off just trying to kill them with your weapons as you have already caught them off guard. I’ve seen pros miss kills they would have otherwise had by getting greedy and trying for the assassination so use it when its appropriate.

Double Melee – The first true trick on this list. Normally after your melee you must wait for the visual animation to finish in order to melee again but if you have a grenade in your inventory you can bypass this restriction. The combination is to melee, grenade, melee as quickly as you can. This will not inflict enough damage on its own to kill an opponent who is at full shields and health and its also very difficult to consistently dodge the grenade that you throw (you will more likely than not get caught in in the radius of your own grenade) so this is usually a last ditch tactic to do as much damage to an opponent before you die.

Doubling Power Ups – More than one person can pick up a powerup when it respawns – all the players that want it need to position part of their Master Chief character on top of where it spawns in order to pick it up upon spawn. This isn’t done too often in competitive Halo as its very difficult to coordinate. This is mostly used in map specific situations (such as when you have top control of prisoner to double the OS). Please note that if you try to double the camo good teams will be paying attention the when it respawns, and you run the risk if giving the enemy an easy double kill if you get caught off guard. The few times I have successfully pulled this off I would only try this on the over shield (at least if you get caught off guard on this one if you can survive long enough for it to spawn, you’ll be able to easily fight back when its charging up). This will also work on Rat Race if you can position enough characters underneath the power up you are shooting down.

Quick Camo – Normally after you fire your weapons while you have camo you momentarily de-cloak and it takes a little bit of time for the camo to fully reactivate. By accident it was discovered that if you fire certain weapons and immediately switch to your other weapon, the camo comes back on considerably faster. This does not work with every weapon and the only three weapons I use this with are the assault rifle, shotgun, and plasma rifle. At high level game play if you see someone drop his pistol for the rocket launcher while keeping the AR as his second weapon, the quick camo trick is the reason why. If you fire a rocket, you can switch to any of those three weapons to have the camo restore faster. Also, if you have any of those three weapons out and you take damage you can immediately fire them to activate the same affect.

Backpack reload – Pressing reload twice on a gun and switching to your second gun allows your first weapon to reload in the background while you are still able to fight with your second weapon. Make sure not to switch back to your weapon that is reloading too quickly as you still need to give it enough time to finish the reload.

Grenade Reloading – Throwing a grenade and pressing reload at the same time will perform both actions simultaneously.

Crouch Jumping – Press the crouch button you can jump on certain objects that are otherwise inaccessible. This trick is mostly used to get on top of the pillars on the bottom of the map on Hang Em High but it can be used in other areas of the game as well (such as the ledges on the bottom of the rocket pit on Damnation & also jumping on the needler rock on Battle Creek to get on top of the base).

Crouch falling – You can also press the crouch button right when you land if you fall from a great distance to mitigate the fall damage. You can use this quite effectively on maps like Damnation.

Crouch walking – If radar is on you can hide yourself from you opponent’s radar by crouch walking.

Grenade jumping – You can extend the height that master chief can reach by jumping by throwing a frag grenade on the ground and jumping right before it detonates. The grenade will damage you so I recommend you only use this in situations where this makes sense (such as after you pick up the overshield on damnation and are grenade jumping into the rocket pit, where in that situation you can time the detonation to occur while your OS is charging thereby negating the damage from the grenade.)

Ladder climbing - You can climb up ladders faster than normal by spamming the A button as you are climbing up them.

Picking up weapons and items from below – You can grab certain weapons in certain maps (for example, the pistol in Wizard if you are playing custom start or the plasma rifle on the second floor or prisoner) by jumping up below them and pressing the X button and literally grabbing the weapon through the wall. You can do the same thing with Health Packs (again, the second-floor prisoner health pack is a great example) but you will need to crouch at the top of the jump in order to grab the health pack through the floor.

Can’t pick up the oddball: If you hold down the fire trigger you will be unable to pick up the oddball. This is useful for when you are holding the oddball and someone comes up right next to you – you can throw your opponent the oddball but he can’t throw it back at you so long as you are holding the fire trigger down. Please note that the pistol will be very inaccurate if you choose to do this with the pistol as your weapon as choice so keep that in mind.

Drive while holding the flag: In the PC version of the game you can drive a vehicle while holding the flag (this is not true in the original xbox version of the game). If you play BTB gametypes frequently make sure to manipulate this to your advantage.

Don't quit out right at the end of a matchmaking game: Halo MCC has an exp system that rewards you for seeing games through to completion. I've noticed multiple people rage quitting out of games right at the end of the game (when a team has 48 or 49 kills and is about to hit the 50 kill limit). Not only are the quitters going to forfeit the exp, they will also get hit with a short ban before being able to search another match making game (a ban which will last longer than the 20-30 seconds the game would have lasted that they quit out of). I can understand why some people quit out early when they on a team that is performing poorly (although I still frown on that behavior), but it's absolutely foolish to quit right at the end. Please don't do this.

Check to see if you are host (MCC on PC version) - If you want to see if you have pulled host in social games, zoom in with the pistol. If you can hear the zoom in sound you have host - if you can't hear the sound you are off host.

Timing of Powerups

The power ups on Halo CE respawn on a static timer. The camo and OS generally respawn every 60 seconds on most maps (one exception is the camo on Rat Race which respawns every 90 seconds and the camo on Chill Out is on a 2 minute respawn). The rocket usually respawns every 2 minutes. There are a few maps where the powerup can vary as to whether it is an OS or camo (such as the powerup in the middle of Blood Gulch and the power up on the very top of Hang Em High) and in those cases the power ups are usually on a 3 minute respawn.

If you have a choice between the three here is how I rank them in order of importance 1) Rocket 2) Camo 3) Overshield. In most team games if you are properly timing its usually worth it to split up amongst the map to ensure you grab as many of the power ups as you can when they respawn.

I can’t stress how important enough timing the power ups is in order to come out ahead in Halo Matches. This skill is so important I am creating a separate section for it just to highlight its importance. Just like someone who chooses to use the AR over the pistol I can quickly tell if an opposing team is timing or not by how often I am able to grab power ups uncontested when they respawn and it’s a sign of a very inexperienced player/team if they are not timing these power ups.

Because all the power ups respawn on a static timer good teams will take the time to position themselves around the map in order to grab as many as they can. This usually takes place around 10-15 seconds before they come up and losing a battle for either the rocket or camo is critical as the rocket gives the other team almost 4 (at a minimum) guaranteed instant-kills and the camo lasts for 45 seconds before it wears off. Losing two or more of the battles for the rocket in a TS game can quickly lead to the other team having 10-15+ kill lead on you. On occasion in 2v2 games if a team loses the fight for the camo its advisable to wait for the opponents cloak to wear off then engage in the fight for the next set of powerups (in 4v4 hiding like this isn’t advisable).

I love the chess match that takes place between two good teams as they try to position themselves to grab the next set of power ups. In my opinion the timing of power ups in this version of Halo is one of the reasons why I rank it as the most competitive Halo version to date – the later Halo versions have watered down this aspect of the game. One of the worst things you can do is die around 5-10 seconds before one of the power ups respawns as it all but guarantees the other team will grab them as you will likely respawn away from where they are located.

Also, items like health packs and frag/plasma grenades generally respawn every 30 seconds.

At the start of every game I recommend you start a timer right as the game begins to track the respawns of the power ups. There are even apps on the app store if you are using a smart phone that you can find free of charge that will not only track the different respawn times of the items on the different maps but will also start an audio countdown 10 seconds before they respawn. The audio reminder is very helpful as you no longer need to divert your eyes off the screen to check on the timer and can instead focus 100% of your attention on the game. If you want to use an app for your smart phone, I recommend the “Timer for Halo 1 MCC Collection” by Noah Evans. It’s free, well designed, and seems to be the universal phone app timer I see used at every Halo LAN I attend.

Grenade tricks

It’s possible to grenade power ups and weapons to yourself using either frag or plasma grenades. Most of the grenade tricks require a frag grenade. Below I will show a few videos of some of the more useful grenade tricks. I will not show all of them as it will take too much space in this guide but what is linked below will give you a good idea as to what is possible. If you want to find more of these grenade tricks there are lots of good videos on YouTube that you can search for that will show in much greater detail exactly what is possible. Alternatively, you can also check out halonades.com

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Spawn Manipulation

In Halo CE whenever you die, you respawn within proximity to a teammate. This is different from games like Halo 5 (which goes out of its way to respawn you away from the enemy team). If your team positions itself poorly you can find yourself getting spawn trapped.

In 4v4 games very little emphasis is given to this fact as you can’t control which teammate you respawn off and in 4v4 I can only give general advice such as stay away from red base in Hang Em High so that you don’t respawn your teammates there.

In 2v2 games however an entirely different world of possibilities can open as you now have only one teammate you can respawn off which means your teammate that is still alive can determine where you respawn in the map. In high level 2v2 games strategies are built around manipulating this mechanic. Of all the maps available for 2v2 play, maps like Hang Em High & Prisoner represent the greatest potential to use the respawn mechanic to your advantage. In Hang Em High there are a few spots in the map in which there actually are no respawn points close to your character – if you can position yourself in one of these locations your teammate will get a random spawn throughout the map and the callout for this was simply ‘random’ (all I had to so was say that one word and if my teammate is still alive and near one of these locations he/she knew what I was asking for). You can also respawn a teammate on the top of certain maps even though you are on the bottom if you position yourself right (for example, hiding in the corner below the blue pistol in Hang Em High gives your teammate an almost guaranteed chance to respawn on top of blue pistol provided that respawn point is not being block by an opposing player).

If you want to learn more about how to manipulate this mechanic, please visit halospawns.com

Weapons

Halo CE weapons fall into two different categories: human weapons and covenant weapons. Generally human weapons are better once a targets shields are down as some can headshot and provide an instant kill while covenant weapons are better at dropping an opponent’s shields quicker. All weapons are projectile weapons (not hitscan), so you will need to learn to lead your shots.

Order of priority for the weapons discussed below (I've excluded grenades and PC only weapons from this list):

1) Pistol
2) Rocket
3) Sniper
4) Shotgun
5) Plasma Rifle
6) Plasma Pistol
7) Assault Rifle
8) Needler

Human Weapons

Assault Rifle – This is one of the worst weapons in the game and its usually one of the fastest ways I can tell if someone is an amateur player – if they are using this over the pistol on generic start game types this is a clear indication that the player doesn’t understand how weak this weapon is. It has a large clip and is capable of high DPS but the problem is its accuracy is awful against anything other than an opponent who is literally right in front of you. And in that situation, you would be better off using a shotgun, not an assault rifle. I still remember how surprised I was with how weak this weapon is after I was done with the campaign and played my first few multiplayer matches. Long story short no matter what situation you are in there is always a weapon better than the AR you could be using. The AR’s best use currently is to quick camo yourself if you have camo rockets.

Sniper Rile – A very powerful long-range weapon, capable of one-shot killing non-overshielded enemies with a single headshot. It kills in two body shots against a non-overshielded opponent (three if they happen to have the overshield). In my opinion the sniper is less effective in this game than in later Halo versions as its more difficult to headshot an opponent (the difference between the H1 and H2 snipers is very apparent) and because of how dominant the pistol is in this game. That said its still one of the best weapons in the game and almost always worth picking up.

Pistol – The most powerful weapon in the game. It’s capable of killing a non-OS enemy in 3 shots in 0.6 seconds so long as the third shot is a headshot. It takes an incredible amount of skill to use and to date I can’t think of another arena FPS game where a weapon so dominates a game the way the pistol dominates H1 multiplayer. This gun is so powerful that throughout competitive Halo tournaments it was quickly decided early on that you had to spawn everyone with this weapon b/c if you didn’t then whomever would spawn closer to the pistol on certain maps could literally go an entire game without dying – it was the only fair way to run tournaments (you were basically fighting against opponents who couldn't fight back if you grabbed the pistol first). Also, don’t ever hold down the fire trigger to auto-fire this weapon as you will run into a massive penalty in accuracy. You can single shot fire it one shot a time at the exact same speed as the auto-fire with no hit to accuracy whatsoever.

Rocket Launcher – One of the only true power weapons in Halo 1, in contention with the pistol as the most powerful weapon in the game. Almost always respawns every 2 minutes on most maps (one notable exception is Derelict where it respawns every 30 seconds). Due to its low ammo count you won’t be able to hang onto this weapon for long but it’s very effective when you do have it in your hands.

Shotgun – A great close-range weapon, capable of one-shot killing non over shielded enemies if you are very close to them. It’s an overall average weapon in this game and is not nearly as powerful as some of the other shotgun versions in later Halos as it lacks the same range as those to do (in this game you literally have to be right in front of your opponent to get a one-shot kill). I sometimes swap this out over the AR if I happen to respawn next to one otherwise, I usually ignore it.

Frag Grenade – Very useful – mainly used to flush enemies out of locations where they are camping. Also needed to grenade weapons to yourself as most of the grenade tricks require this grenade instead of the plasma grenade (although there are a few the require the plasma grenade instead)

Flamethrower (PC version only) – Functions as a more powerful version of the shotgun. Unless you are playing the PC version exclusively or some variant of social big team battle you are unlikely to run into this weapon in game as the settings in HCE via MCC attempt to mirror the original xbox game so this weapon (along with the fuel rod cannon) is usually disabled.

Covenant Weapons

Plasma Pistol – Arguably the third weakest weapon in the game, with the needler being the first and the assault weapon being the second. It has two fire modes – its single shot is capable of paralyzing an opponent on the original Xbox version and it has no cap on the rate of fire so you can fire it as fast as your finger can pull the trigger, but the gun will overheat quickly. Usually you have just enough time to stun lock an opponent, knock off their shields, and go in for a melee while hoping the melee will finish the opponent off before it overheats. In its secondary fire mode, you can hold down the trigger to charge up a shot that will completely remove an opponent’s shields if it connects. This is a great way to knock off an opponent’s overshield but the problem is its too inaccurate to rely on – just like the needler you will have to catch an opponent off guard to have any chance of this connecting. I generally recommend you avoid picking this gun up.


Plasma Rifle – The effectiveness of this gun will largely vary on whether you are playing on the PC version or the original Xbox Version. While both guns do the same amount of damage, the Xbox version of the gun had a powerful paralysis effect that stunned targets for as long as you were damaging them making that version of the weapon more powerful. As covenant weapons shred through shields this gun is a great way to knock off an opponent’s over shield if you can get within close enough range.

Needler – Easily the worst weapon in the game. It fires multiple pink needles that have a homing effect and if enough of the needless connect with the target they will combine to create an explosion that can kill the opponent. Sounds great on paper, but the reality is that the homing effect can be easily dodged by strafing and you will have to catch someone with their back turned to have any chance of killing someone with this weapon (in fact, if someone is strafing not a single one of your needles will connect). Avoid this weapon at all costs.

Plasma grenades – I find these to be less useful than the frag grenades. The plasma grenades can stick to an opponent and kill them upon detonation. If you manage to stick an opponent your opponents only chance of survival is picking up an over shield that is charging when the plasma grenade detonates – this gives the plasma grenades some utility that the frag grenades are lacking. But the big problem with these grenades is that they take longer to detonate when they are on the ground and it gives opponents too large of a window to escape the blast radius. If you have a choice between using frag grenades or plasma grenades you should almost always have the frag grenades selected as the default choice.

Fuel Rod Cannon (PC version only) – Almost functions like mobile artillery does on an RTS game. It’s a power weapon just like the rocket launcher and has a much larger ammo capacity. It has two downsides; it can only fire in an arc (which means you need to have an elevated position on your opponent if you want most of your shots to connect) and it is capable of overheating. But on the PC version, on maps like damnation CTF, you could pick this up and completely decimate teams as they were respawning.

Maps

Battle Creek – A good map for TS and KOTH and a great map for Capture the Flag. Works well in 2v2 and 4v4 although the most of the 2v2 community prefers to skip this map as you can’t spawn manipulate well in it.

Damnation – One of the most challenging maps in 2v2 games to play. Plays well with both TS and team objective game types. Its unbalanced for CTF games as the team at the top (blue base) has an advantage over the bottom (red base) and the few times I saw this used in competitive tournaments both teams would swap sides and the winner would be the one who had the most accumulated caps after both games.

Rat Race – Great map for both TS and KOTH. Oddball can be a bit annoying in 4v4 as good teams can lock down the tunnel on top the map quite easily. Again, due to the inability to spawn manipulate in this map the 2v2 community usually skips this map but in my opinion it’s a great all-around map. Please be aware that if you are in the tunnels you run the risk of respawning your teammates repeatedly at the shields and getting your teammates spawn trapped.

Prisoner – Not ideal for 4v4 games – this map truly excels only in 2v2 team slayer. In 4v4 TS games tend to end quickly and involve a lot of spawn killing. It’s alright for 4v4 KOTH & Oddball if you set the respawn on 10 seconds.

Hang Em High – One of the best designed maps in the game although like damnation the blue side of the map has the advantage on CTF so I generally recommend you avoid playing CTF on this map in a competitive environment (although it is a lot of fun to play CTF on this map). In 4v4 and 2v2 this is a fantastic map for Team Slayer.

Chill Out – One of the more popular maps among the Halo community, works well for 2v2 & 4v4 TS and is fantastic for 4v4 Oddball. I recommend you skip KOTH and CTF on this one.

Derelict – An arena style map like Wizard. Games have the potential to be very lopsided on Derelict as no matter what game type you pick whomever manages to control the top of a map has a massive advantage. Its not uncommon in both 2v2 and 4v4 TS games for teams to go on 15-20 kill sprees without dying due to managing top control of the map effectively. Works well with all gametypes (CTF, slayer, oddball, and KOTH).

Boarding Action – In the original Xbox version I would rank this as the second worst map losing only to Chiron TL34. It excels in one game type only – it’s a great map for 4v4 all snipers team slayer. Its an OK map for KOTH (some of the hills extend to both sides of the map making for interesting battles) but otherwise is awful on every other game type. Unless you want to play 4v4 Team Snipers I recommend skipping this map.

Wizard – An arena style map, just like Derelict, minus the massive advantage you get in Derelict by controlling the top. Just like Derelict it works well with all game types. It’s worth noting that call outs are difficult to do on this map due to symmetrical nature of the map (I’m usually restricted to saying either dark camo or light camo if an enemy happens to be there as that is literally the only way a teammate can know what I’m talking about).

Chiron TL34 – Arguably the worst designed map in the game its terrible for practically any game type you run on it. This map was almost never used for competitive tournaments and even on LANs we rarely played it. The only setting we could run that made this map even remotely enjoyable was all shotguns team slayer. If you haven’t played this map yet, do yourself a favor and skip it.

Longest – This map was the inspiration for Elongation in Halo 2 and it’s a very small straightforward map. Excels at team slayer, oddball, and CTF. Its OK for KOTH although games quickly turn into nade fests on KOTH on Longest.

Sidewinder – One of only two maps in the original Xbox version that allowed you to use vehicles. While not a truly bad map I always find myself a bit bored on Sidewinder. Its intended for 8v8 Big Team Battles but I always find myself spending too much time trying to find where the action is on this map. It was used only once competitively in the MLG tournaments that I can remember, and it was used for 4v4 Team Snipers (and the game took a long time to finish). It’s an OK CTF and TS map. I recall it being used for the 5v5 Invasion CTF game type during the CPL as well but also remember this was my least favorite map to run that game type on.

Blood Gulch – The other of the two maps that allowed you to use vehicles on the original Xbox Version. During the original Halo days this was without a doubt the most popular map when you would join games via XBC or Game Spy. It was easy to learn and very open which lead to quick and easy fights and lots of action. This map is best played with the CTF gametype although it is also an OK team slayer map as well. I recommend skipping KOTH and Oddball as the map is too big for those gametypes.

PC/MCC Only:

Ice Fields – A BTB map that is OK for CTF and Team Slayer. It worked brilliantly for the CPL tournaments with the 5v5 Invasion Game Type they had used back in the day.

Death Island – Very similar to the island you explore on The Silent Cartographer (4th mission) in the campaign. It’s an average BTB map.

Danger Canyon – One of the better designed maps that’s almost like it is two maps in one. Whenever I play this, I usually ignore all the vehicles and the complete outside of the map and focus only on the inside. Like Ice Fields this was also a fantastic 5v5 Invasion map.

Infinity – In contention with Chiron TL34 as the worst map in the game if you include PC maps. Its biggest problem? It’s too big. You can only play 8v8 on this map but its so large its better suited for 16v16 and you’ll spend most of the time just roaming around aimlessly trying to find someone to engage. Even 16v16 might not be enough to make this make worth your while and you may need something like 32v32 instead.

Timberland – A good map for BTB – this map even had remake for it in Halo Reach. Works best with CTF.

Gephyrophobia – Like Danger Canyon I almost consider this map to be two different maps in one. In the center you have a long-extended bridge that you can navigate with vehicles. In the back of each base there are teleports that will teleport you onto corridors on both sides of the map. Whenever I play this map, I usually tend to ignore the center and vehicles and focus instead on sniping people from the corridors you can teleport to and/or running flag via the same teleports. It’s not the best map ever but its playable if you ignore the bridge.

FAQ

What was system link?

It’s a shame I feel like a section in this FAQ is necessary for this but there are too many players who seem to not understand why this feature is important so I’m including a section in my guide explaining what system link is and why it is important. Before Xbox Live was released some of the more popular multiplayer games on the Xbox were released with a feature called System Link. By default, you could only have 4 players play on a single Xbox but via system link you had the option to hook up more boxes to have even larger multiplayer games. In the case of Halo 1, you could hook up 4 Xboxes to a router and with a cap of 4 players per box had the potential to play 16 player games. Services like XBC and GameSpy allowed gamers to take maximum advantage of this feature (I’ll describe these services below as neither are still around anymore). Most games now are unfortunately released without system link which means you are forced to connect to the Internet and without the system link feature you can’t really have a true LAN on consoles.

What were XBC & GameSpy?

Xbox Connect (XBC for short) and GameSpy were two different programs you could run off your PC that took maximum advantage of the system link feature on any Xbox game that supported it. You would hook up your PC and Xbox through a router and both XBC & GameSpy were able to trick the Xbox into thinking it was on a LAN, which enabled you to play online in games that were never intended to be played online (provided the game supported system link). I can’t emphasis enough just how incredibly useful this feature was back in the day. While I have no way to prove this it is my opinion that once Microsoft was ready to launch their Xbox Live service they were able to pressure game developers into not releasing any other games that had system link as you could essentially use either XBC or GameSpy to negate the need for signing up for an Xbox Live subscription. Unfortunately, neither service still exists today.

What is the difference between the NTSC and PAL Versions of the game (NOTE: This applies only to original xbox copies of Halo CE)?

The NTSC version runs 20% faster than the PAL version and the PAL version also does not have fall damage. If you are playing in North America, you are using the NTSC version of the game and if you are playing from Europe you are likely on the PAL version.

How significant was the host advantage in Halo CE in the original Xbox version?

It was a massive advantage, so much so that any time I hear someone complaining about host advantage while playing later versions of Halo I can almost guarantee they haven’t played off host in Halo 1 via XBC or GameSpy. If you were the host of a game on either XBC or GameSpy, you had no lag whatsoever. It was a flawless gaming experience that I have yet to be able to replicate elsewhere – you could play online, lag free, in a game that was never intended to be played online. But if you were the person who was joining the game, the LAG could become nearly unbearable if the host didn’t have enough upload to justify hosting in the first place. While you could move your character around with little difficulty, the LAG would greatly delay your shots and it was inconsistent, so you had to continuously readjust. You literally had no chance in a head on fight against a host who was good at the game as you would routinely miss shots that you would have otherwise had due to the delay. On LAN the advantage was much smaller than via XBC and Gamespy but it was magnified to a greater degree than other Halo games as you could have 4 players on a single box which meant the entire opposing team had host as opposed to just a single player having it. For MLG tournaments, most of the series would be either best of 3 or best of 5 and teams would alternate host every game (the team that had the higher seed would be able to host first).

Why did they port the PC version into MCC instead of the Xbox version?

The PC version already supported online play and one of the selling points of MCC was the ability to play online in any game it offered. It likely made sense to use the PC version as the Xbox version would have required more effort for them to establish online play.

What was the tournament scene like back in 2003-2006?

The first tournament that was hosted was the Halo National Championship, won by Dustin Langton (Hp Darkman). The finals were played on G4TV back when that TV channel still existed (I’ll link to a video on YouTube below, please notify me if the link ever becomes broken). There were also a few other tournament organizations that ran Halo tournaments that I’ll mention below.

AGP (Associates of Gaming Professionals). They ran around 4-5 different tournaments, 2-3 of which were H1 with the remaining being H2. After the H1 Nationals they ran a tournament in Nashville, Tennessee which was the second major Halo 1 tournament. It had an FFA and 4v4 component (Dustin Langton won the FFA) and The Dream Team (Chump, Dagel, Shizz, Darkman) managed to win the 4v4. Unfortunately, they went out of business and no longer organize tournaments. I've linked a video from one of the AGP tournaments below (unfortunately I can't do much about the poor quality without access to the source file):

MLG (Major League Gaming). Now a major esports organizer, MLG was in its infancy back in the day. Their first event was organized at a LAN center in New York and I believe Halo 1 & Halo 2 were the only games they ran a tournaments for the first few years (they had an occasional game as a side event at certain tournaments but Halo was their flagship title for years). Halo 1 had a combination of 4v4, 2v2, and FFA/1v1 events. I've searched YouTube to find some videos from back in the day showcasing each format but unfortunately I can only find a few and the quality is worse than I prefer:

CPL (Cyberathlete Professional League). Exclusively ran tournaments for PC games. Halo PC was used for two CPL tournaments and I remember every event taking place at the Gaylord Texan near the DFW airport. I competed in both. Xeno won the first event and Wat? won the second. Unfortunately, the CPL faded away after a few years despite the massive success they had initially. Someone bought the right to use their name but appear to have done little with the brand. The website was last updated sometime in 2017 and in its current form I almost treat it as a dead organization as it currently exists as a shell of what it used to be. Below are videos from both events (Winter 2003 & Summer 2004):

WCG (World Cyber Games): Essentially the Olympics for video games, hosted tournaments for various titles from 2001 through 2013. They went away for about 5 years and starting in 2019 are beginning to make a return. For Halo 1 they held a 1v1 competition in 2003 and 2004 and in 2005 they held a 2v2 competition for Halo 2. Back in the 2003-2006 time frame, I considered both the CPL & WCG to be light years ahead of MLG & AGP. If you managed to win either a CPL or WCG event, you had a legitimate claim and saying you were the best in the world at the game you competed in. I’m glad they are making a return. Below are videos of finals for the Halo 1 in 2003 & 2004 WCG events:

References

Halospawns.com – If you want to learn more about the how to manipulate the spawns in this game this is the area to look at. Please note that some of the maps listed are available on only modded Xboxes so don’t panic if you don’t recognize the names on some the maps.

Timer for Halo 1 MC Collection by Noah Evans - available on the app store on the Iphone. I am not certain of its availability on other platforms such as Android. It’s completely free and I recommend everyone grab this.

Halowaypoint.com – A great website for information related to the latest happenings in the Halo World.

Halonades.com – Shows a good portion of the available Halo Nade tricks. I’d recommend checking this site of searching on YouTube if you are a new player.

Halo1hub.com – A great resource for Halo 1 players.

Halo Esports Wiki - https://halo-esports.gamepedia.com/Halo_Esports_Wiki - A good place to go if you are looking up on the history of past Halo tournaments. It’s most accurate from what I’ve been able to gather.

http://tracker.gg - For anyone who doesn't know, when searching social games, you have a hidden rank that isn't displayed. Matchmaking will attempt to balance the teams when possible, so if you have a high rank and solo search you will almost always be paired with the weakest teammates the matchmaking algorithm can find. If you would like to see your invisible ranking, i recommend you go to tracker.gg, select Halo MCC, and input your gamertag into the search bar to see your ranking (you can also search other gamertags as well).

Update Log

3/4/2020 - Guide has been released!
3/4/2020 - Fixed link for halospawns.com in references section
3/11/2020 - Added a tip under 'Tips and tricks' section regarding ladder climbing
3/11/2020 - Made a note that all weapons are projectile vs hitscan under weapons section (thank you fLayN for this reminder)
3/11/2020 - Moved the 'Weapons', 'Human Weapons', & 'Convenant Weapons' sections from the beginning of the guide to the end of the guide.
3/11/2020 - Ranked the order of weapons in order of importance under 'Weapons' section (thank you to (TD)Woogy for this idea)
3/15/2020 - Added a note under the FAQ section regarding NTSC & PAL versions of the game to clarify I was referring only to original xbox versions of Halo CE.
3/30/2020 - Added a note that you could drive a vehicle while holding the flag in the PC version of the game under the 'Tips & Tricks' section.
4/10/2020 - Added a note regarding a camo glitch under the 'Powerups' section that exists on the PC version of the game.
4/10/2020 - Added notes regarding quitting early in matchmaking under the 'Tips & Tricks' section that I thought was warranted in light of recent player behavior in matchmaking.
5/3/2020 - Added information regarding tracker.gg in the references section
5/5/2020 - Added instructions on how to discover if you pulled host in social games under 'Tips & Tricks' section

Legal

Copyright 2020 Matthew Leto

[RaZexxBomber]

Pretty interesting and in depth guide for CE Zyos. Will definitely use this for CE games.

[「Alucardism」]

Halo Ce multiplayer would be better without the pistol.

[magazine permafrost]

based

[elevn]

I've never seen a such accurate guide, good job!

[Okom]

Amazingly detailed and helpful guide! I very much like the addition of Halo CE's history

[A Danimator]

Bro does anyone else just get absolutely dicked on in doubles comp?

[SpartanIII]

Hey I remember you. Epic writeup, thanks

[Fushiii]

From one former competitive Halo player to the next, great guide. I'm sure many will find it very useful!

[Zyos]

Χάρης,

I was referring only to the original xbox versions of those games when I was comparing NTSC & PAL - I'm aware of no difference between the PC versions. I'll add a note to clarify this to prevent confusion for others! If you are playing on the PC you are likely experiencing lag that is responsible for bad hit registration at times.

[Χάρης]

[quote]The NTSC version runs 20% faster than the PAL version and the PAL version also does not have fall damage. If you are playing in North America, you are using the NTSC version of the game and if you are playing from Europe you are likely on the PAL version.[/quote]

Does that apply on multiplayer too? Is that why I got bad hit reg sometimes, or is it just lag?