Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Halo: Campaign Evolved Review - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: July 23, 2026

Head over to http://patreon.com/kindafunny this month to grab a membership and receive exclusive content and ad-free episodes! Thank you for the support! Run of Show - 00:00:00 - Start00:04:08 - Topic of the Show: Halo: Campaign Evolved Review00:05:44 - Parris’ thoughts00:10:46 - Mike’s thoughts00:21:40 - Andy’s thoughts00:30:40 - General talk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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He told me about an hour ago. I'm still waking up. But hello, everybody. Welcome to Kind of Funny Gamescast for Thursday, July 23rd, 2026. I'm one of your host, Ray Narvarez Jr. Once again, I don't work here. I'm just visiting with my wife. To my left, of course, we have the lovely Andy Cortez, Snowbike Mike.

And then dialing in the voice of God, Paris Lily is here. Shout out. What's up, Ray? It's nice to finally meet you officially. And we're talking Halo today. I have not played it. You guys have played it. I've played it.

And I'm very excited to learn. And for you guys to sell it to me, I'm going to play it anyway, but still, I want you to sell it to me. Really quick, Ray, for me, yes. Give me some of your Halo background. How much do you love Halo? On scale one to 10, how much you love Halo? Probably a nine. Even the stinkers, I would say, are pretty good.

I think I've played all the mainline ones, not like the, like, I'm not a big Halo Wars guy, because I don't like RTSs. I hear the games are great. I love it. But I'm more of a, I just want to shoot the guy. How about Spartan assault? Oh, I've played those. The twin six shooters.

I think they're underrated. How about the Raven Command one at the local David? Did Busters? I have played that. I have played that. I have played that. They are. Achieving for those is all.

No achievement. So that one, I just play casually. But before we begin, if you're watching live, be part of the show by super chatting on YouTube. com slash Kind of Funny games. Remember, we couldn't do this about you, are producers on Patreon.com slash Kind of Funny. So thank you.

Carl Jacob's. I know Carl. Omega Buster, Delaney, the Somme, Twinnning. And lacks. I'm mad. Hopefully I said that correctly. If not, I apologize. I think you crushed it. Let's go. We're 15% of the way through the show so far.

Yeah, you're tearing through. We're tearing through. Huge. We're killing. I'm usually sleeping right now or talking to myself in my room. But a little soda. I got that. I got a little sody. I'm good. Yeah. I'm stoked to talk about a halo right now. We have a big thing coming up next week. Don't we, Mike? Tell us all about it. We have our monthly marathon stream coming up next week where we're going to set the tone with fun sleepover land party. Ooh, classic. We have convinced Daddy Tim, who just had a newborn to give us a long night.

We're going to go till midnight is our goal. Of course, the best friends out there can't support us over on Twitch. Please support the boys. But what we're going to do is we're going to have a fun land party four players split screen co-op. Oh, chef's kiss. I guess it's not split stream with four players online. You get the vibe.

You get the vibe. But we're going to play the game on legendary. Of course. As you should. Yeah. We're not going to do all schools. No, no, no, you're not a psychopath. You want to have fun.

I know, I know. That's what they said to me too. Kevin, what I'm going to need, probably like some sort of recliner chair. Okay. Mouse and keyboard set up. Oh, right, mouse and keyboard. You know, doesn't it playing Halo mouse and keyboard feel foreign a little bit?

It does, but I'm way better. Like, I know the original also came out on PC, but you need the eight troller. If we need, like, but if you want, if we want the hard carry, you know what I mean? Got it. I would, I'll need a mouse and keyboard set. of Kevin. Possibly in my ex-reels. We could just dial me in, get me real,

just locked into the Halo Matrix. He's in the Matrix. Yeah. I'm so stoked for this. I'm really, really pumped. Paris, how stoked are you for a HALA? I'm a huge HAL-AO-FAN, so I'm 10 out of 10 on my stokedness.

Hell yeah. Very, very cool. Well, let's get into it. Topic of the show. Yeah. Tots, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, oh, it's an acronym. I get it now.

I have no information, by the way. I have an iPad. So I'm just winging it. I love this. Ray, you see that little steam description? Oh, yeah, you want me to read it? Why don't you go ahead and read that for me? All right.

Halo Campaign Evolved. Halo Campaign Evolved is a faithful yet modernized remake of Halo Combat Evolves campaign. Experience the original story rebuilt with high-definition visuals, updated cinematics, refined controls, plus a brand new three-mission adventure, a broader arsenal of weapons, vehicles, enemies, and gameplay modifying skulls, optional modifiers that change combat in fun and challenging ways, add fresh tactics and endless

replayability. The official release date is July 28th, 2026. That's one of the longer steam descriptions I've ever seen. Yeah, it's a novel. I got halfway through and I'm like, there's so many words left. It feels like Xbox knows what they're doing with that one. They could have just said, it's Halo 1. You know what this is. You remember that, but with Ray tracing,

it looks real good. Three new missions, you'll figure it out. Ray. right uh 499 99 999 499 or game pass PC Xbox and PlayStation switch is a big deal going over to team blue which is pretty wild to see halo on the front page of your PlayStation 5 it's exciting it feels illegal have you all seen the cartridges yet like the actual discs out there oh for the PlayStation yeah it looks so weird yeah it's awkward it's definitely it uh what it reminds me of paris is like playing horizon or on and seeing the Xbox symbols pop up whenever you play on BC.

Very, very awkward. Yeah. Oh, like the buttons. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Who wants to kick it off? I think let's let pairs kick it off because he is remote. So it's hard for us sometimes to get to them when we have a special guest. Oh, yeah, that looks. That looks gross. But yeah, I think Parrish should. All right. Yeah, now before I kick it off, I just have to say,

I absolutely love that Ray just walked off the street and it's just pretty much as a host already. We landed yesterday. went to bed, woke up, and here I am. But just getting into it. So Halo campaign evolved. You know, I completed it start to finish. Did the bonus levels on legendary, did that in four-player co-op, played the main campaign

at Heroic, around 12-ish hours, I would say. I absolutely love this. I adored it. I think when we first started hearing about this and we knew there wasn't going to be multiplayer, I thought that was very odd. I still think it's a little odd. But judging the game for just what it is, those bonus levels gives me so much hope for the future of Halo. I love them. I mean, we had Tom Fuler in hijinks the entire time playing on Legendary through that, but it was a blast. It just reminded me why I love Halo,

why I've been such a fan for the past 25 years. And then when you jump into the main campaign, like I said, I played that solo on Heroic, just opening up that, that whole sandbox. where as you took a 25-year-old game that, you know, if you were to just come in and play it now, it's going to feel dated. I mean, the level design and all that is still somewhat dated. But they've added new gameplay features to it now that you can sprint, now that you can hijack vehicles, you know, the weapons are updated. Like the needler is actually useful, you know, in the campaign evolved, right?

I loved it. I got to just play around. And it's like everything's very familiar, but there's just enough difference there. and there's enough enough gameplay change there that it felt fresh to me. It felt I was excited to go through it. And I will say this, I literally wiped the library from my memory. I know they said they made some changes to it. It's still the library.

You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. But the fact that there are new, they had like Steve Downs and Jen Taylor come back in and record new voice dialogue. there is a new voice actor for Sajor Johnson. So he came in and recorded all new dialogue. Sarger Johnson is your companion in the bonus levels because it's a prequel, you know, to combat evolved. So Cortana, you haven't met Cortana yet.

So he's kind of, it was funny and legendary. He's in the background talking all this smack. I'm like, you're freaking useless, dude. Shoot something. Yeah, but just over. It was just fun. I just had fun. And I didn't play through like enabling skulls or anything, because I want to just

the pure experience. I loved it, but I can see the replayability here. Like you guys mentioned, I played on Heroic. The difficulty, there was enough of a challenge there where I wasn't just blindly just running through everything. But now I want to step it up, do it solo and legendary and then do the co-op experience with my friends on Legendary through the original campaign.

Again, with all these new sandbox changes, you know, with the gameplay aspect. So it's Halo. It's very familiar. or anyone that's been playing it over the past 25 years, you're going to feel right at home. But I will give it this credit. It's on Unreal 5.

And if you didn't tell me it was on Unreal 5, I'd have no idea. Because it just plays like Halo. It doesn't feel any different at all. But I played on PC, graphically, look great, played great. I had no issues at all. And I would say ultimately, if I were to give this a score, 9 out of 10. Wow.

I give this a 9 out of 10. For what it is. Again, I understand that people, hey, there's no multiplayer here. I get that, but I'm judging it for what it is and what I've got to play over the past week and a half. And I loved it. Absolutely loved it. Halo to me is back. I'm very excited to see what they can build upon from these bonus levels because that showed me some modern level design, some modern game play with Halo. I want more. I mean, I don't know if they're going to do the Halo 2 or 3 remakes, but I love that they did these prequel bonus missions. And I would love to. to see, like what I would love to see now is how does Sergeant Johnson survive off of the Halo ring and get back. Yeah. Show us Master Chief getting back to Earth from, from the Halo ring and lead up to Halo 2.

I would love to see some bonus missions in there as well. Oh, and not to mention, you also can unlock skins as well. There's no microtransactions in the game, so you don't have to worry about that. But playing through the game, you can unlock skins. I know there's a 25th anniversary, Master Chief skin that you can get. Ironically enough, if I was playing with Danny Pena, he put on a hunter skin. So when we're doing those bonus levels,

I kept thinking there was a hunter. He was just throwing me off the time. I was like, my God, take this freaking skin off because it was throwing it soft. But it was fantastic. I had an absolute blast playing Halo campaign involved. How long did it take to beat? I think it's like 12 hours. Like I said, about 12-ish hours,

between the bonus levels and then going through the normal campaign. Very cool. My mind is your mind, Paris, because I echo so much. of what he just said. That's how I feel. I have a giant smile on my face, getting to replay Halo 1.

It's a long time for me, right? I know, of course, we're talking about the 25th anniversary. We've had a remake. We've had the Master Chief collection come back into our lives. But Halo 1 for me is one that I have a lot of nostalgia for. I have a lot of love for on the multiplayer side. But the story itself,

that's kind of one, like maybe a one or twice and done for me. I'm more of a Halo 2 and 3 guys. Yeah. I haven't really got to play that much Halo 1 campaign in my life. life where it's like I remember it beat for beats. And so I was really excited to jump into one again, right? This is like a really old moment for me where it's like this is going to be exciting.

And everything Paris just brought up, I feel that, right? The nostalgia goes up to about 15 when you see Master Chief. You see Sergeant Keys. You see, of course, Cortana. And it's like, oh, I'm back in my comfort zone. Yeah. Where I want to be. And for me, I played on normal all the way through all 13 missions, finished at about 9 to 10 hours,

Okay. So I'm saving the legendary run for, of course, our big marathon stream. But I did play a normal all by myself through this. And I had one great time. I'm going to give this an eight out of ten. And I'm going to say this. The old heads are going to get mad at me. But this is my new definitive way to play Halo 1. This is my go-to way.

If somebody comes up to me and says, hey, Mike, I want to get into Halo series. I want to jump on to Halo for the first time. I would tell them, hey, this is a perfect onboarding right here because of Unreal Engine 5. Yeah, absolutely. If I could jump on that before you, you jump in, Andy. Just to that point, I feel the same way. This is the definitive way to play Halo for the modern age. I understand the purest. I don't want sprint, don't want to change. I get it. I totally understand it. But I think about that next generation gamers that are now being introduced to Halo. Like, you know, I've talked about my son a million times on X-Cast. It's like he went back and decided to play all the halos. And I'll never forget, he got to combat evolved. And he was like, What do you mean you can't sprint? What do you mean you can't do this? Why is this? He's like, why is it so slow?

He had so many complaints and he didn't really start enjoying Halo until he got to reach, ironically enough, where he kept having all these complaints. So I think it was necessary to make these changes to get a new generation of gamers that are used to a more modern gameplay style, want to invest in this and want to play and want to understand this universe in this world and not feel like they're fighting their controls and not feeling like it's such a dated game because I think all the things like Sprint and now you can

hijack vehicles and all those things, it added a new fresh coat of paint to the original game that I think a lot of people now can appreciate. So yeah, in my opinion, I think this is a definitive way to play Halo Combat Evolt or Campaigner Vault. And with Unreal Engine 5, right, it looks great.

The fidelity, the detail. It looks shiny. The character model. It's shiny. It's exciting. It feels, of course, modern, right? Yeah. That's the big touch. Stone here. Talking about a 25-year-old game, and it has its charm.

It has its art style and it's looking. And it's still there. I love it. And it's still there if you want to play. But man, oh man, when you jump into this, it's shiny. It's new. It's exciting.

It's taking things that I love from 25 years ago and making it feel kind of fresh, right? Yeah. Corridor. Every turn that I make, it's kind of, ooh, what's around this? How are they going to play with that midship covenant purple? How are they going to make the flood stand out in this scary, eerie swamp? sure they're spookier now that they're in 4K and they don't like all blocky. They look great.

The detail on the flood when they are overtaking one of the UNSC Marines or one of the covenant enemies, it's like, wow, you look so cool, right? And so I really do love the look of it all. And as Paris says, right, the gameplay is still there. It's still very much feels like Halo, right? Like you could give me Halo 1 and this and it all still feels so similar. It feels like I'm in my comfort zone playing Halo, whether you have sprint or not. It's just there.

And so I really love that the gameplay is still true to form. I love that they added weapons that weren't in the original Halo 1, right? Getting to use the battle rifle. Yeah, seeing that seems so foreign. It's right. Or like a needle rifle from reach or something. Hey, like this wasn't in there. But when you use them, it feels right.

It's not like it stands out. It's like, oh, that doesn't make any sense. Yeah, yeah. You know, it all feels good. And it's exciting to grab a weapon that wasn't in there or grab the energy sword and just start slashing away. Oh, it's right. Yeah, because you couldn't use a sword in one. You couldn't.

and it brings the fun to it, right? And I do want to highlight like Paris on my final part here is, I think Operation Meteorite, which is the new three missions with Master Chief and Johnson, are fantastic, right? And this is kind of where I was coming out of of, hey, I know what Halo 1 is. We all know what Halo 1 is.

And it is great. It's an epic sci-fi tale with Master Chief Cortana, the UNSC and the covenant, all battling over the ring, right? Like, it's exciting and you know it. But I wanted to know if Halo Studios can really still bring it. if they know what they're going to do for the future. And, of course, getting the test run on Unreal Engine 5,

they proved to me, it looks good, it plays good, I'm happy with it. But what is a story you can tell? Do you have the writing? Do you have that push that I'm going to get excited for? And these three levels, got it, right? Are these three levels unique, or are they, like, pulled from the books? You know?

Oh, I don't know if they're pulled from the books because there's so many books. I think it's unique in its own. Okay. But it's really cool. It's a great setup of MasterCep and, Sergeant Johnson are set up. They're going to go on a heist, right? We're going to invade this Covenant ship and we're going to find these

map coordinates to try to find the Covenant Homeworld. And when you get on this ship, the art design, the idea of where they want to take the look of the covenant with their armor and their different looks of the brutes and the grunts and the elite all look

great. The brutes are in here and they're super cool and they have this fun idea of gameplay where they're getting controlled by this red dot on their chest. That is like mind messing with them where the prophets can tell them what to do. But if you shoot them, they go feral. They start to attack anything

in their way and they come after you and it's awesome, right? When they chase you, it's fucking scary. You get on all fours? And the design of this ship is so halo in all of its essence, but also so new and so fresh. The white and gold

remind me of what Bungie was bringing with their destiny raid that you've seen before with the big profit. I forget. I forget get the destiny rate itself, but you've all played it. But like, when you're inside of this Covenant ship and you see the white and gold accents mixed with that just covenant purple, it all looks so good. And the idea of this story and where they take you and the characters you get introduced, I was really impressed where I was like, you know what?

I got faith that the Halo Studios team can bring me something exciting on the next go-around. And I want to see that, right? That was a big thing here. When we talk about 3-4-3 into Halo Studios, it's been a, a rocky road. Yes, it has. It's ups and downs for diehard.

To put it kindly. You like it or not, right? And like, I like a lot of what they've done. I've enjoyed a lot of it. But there is that like, hey, Bungy nostalgia where they really nailed it,

right? And it's tough to be the second team after that to pick up the baton. And so we're in a new age of Halo where, hey, Xbox and Microsoft are relying on a lot of their key franchises to actually hit and be there. And this team with the writing and the storytelling did a really good job. So I'm going.

going to give them a nice big thumbs up of like those three missions. I want more of that because it is very Halo. It's what you want out of Halo and it's exciting. My only my like, hey, I didn't love this, right, would be some of the cutscenes in this game on the original side look like really good. You've seen the teaser of the silent cartographer where Chief is flying in the Pelican. You're like, this is Halo. This is sick. This is awesome.

And then there's somewhere. It's like, that didn't hit the mark right. there. And it's just like a subtle one. We're like not as good. What do you mean visually or? Yeah. Visually. No, visually. It's just like some of them don't look quite as like, it's like, oh, this is high budget. Yeah. And then on the flip side, there's

some lines like Paris brought up like with the re-records where some of them really hit and then some of them kind of fall flat where I'm like, hmm, I feel like in the original that line hit a little bit different there, y'all. Now is this for Master Master Chief and like Cortano as well or just like the new Johnson? No, not. The new stuff

is pretty solid. I would say the writing on the new stuff really good, but I think you could punch that up to be great. I think all in all, like, the writing and like voice line delivery for me is like a 7.58 where it's like there's room for improvement here and I hope they'll nail that on the neck.

I didn't know they recorded, re-recorded stuff. But I'm really excited. I'm really happy about this experience. Eight out of ten, great. Looking forward to sharing it with friends. You know, the multiplayer thing is a whole different story. Yeah. It can of wax. But like for what we got here, you're going to have a really good time reliving the moments and enjoying this new stuff.

Canna worms and ball of wax? Yeah, he combined him. He said can of wax. I didn't want to address it. I'm like, I knew what you meant. You also said Sergeant Keyes earlier. I'm like, I know what he means. Ray, let's get away with him.

I'll let you get away with it. It's no point. So, Mike, you forgot one thing. How we passed. You forgot one thing about the bonus levels. Like you mentioned the brutes, which I loved. You mentioned the profit is in there as well. And they're telling that story.

They're already calling him. demon at this point. So this goes to show you, Chief has had this impact even before he goes to the Halo ring. And that was the point I was bringing up before that I would love to see more of the prequel stuff, more of those stories, if they could potentially tell them. And another side note, if they'd start dipping into Halo 2, they could tell some bonus missions with the Arbiter.

I would love to see that as well. More Arby. Really quick, what needs to happen now is like if there's a small team that can build off of what they're doing and make Halo 2 and three, I'll give them the thumbs up. But like, I am excited to see what's next for Halo and most importantly, I've said it so many times on the podcast.

More people need to be playing in the sandbox of Halo with their development teams. We should be getting a ODST, a shock trooper type story. We should be getting Halo Wars. We should have more people playing in the Halo universe instead of just waiting five years over and over again for something new.

Like, let's get some fun. I mean, there's 40 books. It feels like 50. books. There's so much to pull from that you don't have to keep rehashing the same, you know, a couple of games over and over again. And it's cool for it in this instance. You can watch that TV show. Yeah. You can see Mass Chief's ass, I think.

Yeah, take his helmet off. You can max him out. But I'm glad. I'm super excited. I haven't played it yet. I've only played the original 25 years ago. I played Hale Anniversary and then I replayed it on Mass Chief Collection. So it's, uh, yeah, just seeing the videos here, this is like the most I've seen of it.

It looks incredible. It truly does. Andy, how do you feel about it? Um, so I was busy with, I was busy with the squid kids and the octo lings. Sure. It's just splatting and getting ink all over the place. Splatoon for those don't know. Platoon, yeah, Splatoon.

They're talking to Cody last night. Out of context, I guess I'd, yeah, pretty cancelable. Um, I was playing a lot of splatoon. So I unfortunately did not get to beat this game. I probably could have, though, however, but I was like, I want to save the big moments for the big marathon stream. So I played about half of the game and one mission on the game. new set of missions.

The new bonus missions. The new bonus missions. And it is so cool to see Halo 1 looking like this, to see an SMG, to see the needleer rifle. Like all, it's awesome to have these kind of like universes mixing and matching in the way. And I, I kind of agree with Mike. Like I think back to watching Greg and Tim play Halo where it was Greg's first time, like actually playing.

Oh, he's a PlayStation guy, yeah. And Greg playing through it and having the same reaction that Paris's kid had of like, man, there's no sprint. Yeah. It does feel slow. A little slow, you know. I think they have found the perfect speed for it. You are not going to be call of duty slide canceling and doing all this crazy maneuvering.

It's just, it's an added mechanic that feels right. It doesn't feel out of place to me. Halo 1 has been so important to be my whole life. like when we talk about Paris bringing up the library, I love the library because that was my form of like a rogue light before. Sure. Because I didn't have Xbox Live back in the day. I would play Xbox Connect to my friend's house because he had an internet set up and I didn't.

And that's the only way we could play against other people online. But when I would go back home and I didn't have online, I would play the library. And me and my friends would play the library as like a challenge. I'm like, oh, you know, let's try to get through deathless. Play through the level and try to have fun is a challenge. Yeah. It's a big challenge. Yeah.

It's a big challenge. But it was always just like the hardest of the missions or whatever. And it's also really, really terrifying because it's very scary and dark. And the flood are always awesome. I wanted to save my first time seeing the flood again for the stream because that's such a big moment in Halo. And it's horrifying. And the way that the lighting and everything would work at all works in this game is going to add so much to the environment and the ambiance. I've been having a really great time so far with it.

Again, I've played about a half of it, including one of the newer missions. The newer missions, I will say, my big... Sorry to cut you off. Can you play those immediately or in any order? Immediately. Oh, you can't play it. I was sure you to, like, beat the game or something. The main menu has campaign and then it has bonus missions.

Oh, okay. Bonus. And you could start those off immediately right off the rip. My, my, one of my biggest issues with the newer missions, I, you know, there's a lot of positive to talk about. But negatively, I would say Master Chiefs just sounds like a different character and, you know, maybe this is Master Chief before he's become

you know, grizzled and is this, you know... Also, the voice actor is what, 25 years older now? Of course. But, but the way he acts in the, in these bonus missions, very like Nathan Drakey, MCU-ish type of dialogue in some cases. He's right behind me, isn't he? Yeah, well, I mean, you know, there's, you know, there's a moment where Sergeant Johnson is trying to

open a door and Master Chief's like, so, you know, how long is this going to take? And it's, I don't know, it just feels kind of out of place in some cases for Master Chief. I'm used to just like the, him being so efficient. He's got three words he's going to say and they're going to be so impactful. I need a weapon. Yeah. I need weapon, three words. But aside from that, they do feel so modern in how they are designed and how the levels are laid out and how the enemies react to.

you and seeing all of the, again, the different weapons that you can use with the new environments, it looks awesome. It feels great to play. And I would say, Kevin, can you hit the music? Because it's a games cast, game. Oh, shit. Because it's a games cast, game tip. If you need help, don't feel ashamed. It's a games cast. Who sings this? We're going to help you.

Everybody, welcome to Gamescast Game Tip. I lowered the, I made the crosshairs smaller. Oh. And until you do that, you know, obviously I've played HAL in my whole life, and I replayed the campaign a million times. And you don't really realize, like, the actual bullet spray of the assault rifle until you make the crosshairs smaller, which is something you couldn't do back in the day. Yeah.

But like the crosshair, whenever you're using the assault rifle, it's always been like the crosshair for any shotgun in any game. It's just like a circle. It's a gigantic circle. It's huge. Whenever you play this game and I lowered the, I made the crosshair smaller, I'm like,

this gun's a lot more accurate than I would have ever thought. Because it has a good bullet spray spread or whatever. And it, I would recommend making the crosshair small just because I think that they can be kind of massive. And that's just how things were back in the day. you know, we were playing at resolutions that were a lot smaller. I made the crosses a lot smaller and that made using the battle rifle, like so much more fun. The, the, the, the, the covenant rifle or the, what's called the, um, needle rifle?

No, the, like the, the, oh, you think about the sniper rifle, the beam rifle? Yeah, the beam rifle. All that stuff just kind of, it helped modernize things a bit and to make them feel, you know, a bit more like I'm playing a game that came out today. But the game is still so much fun aside from, it, it doesn't really, really feel like old game is old aside from some of the level design things, but there's just such a blast of like throwing

grenades and seeing enemies fly all over the place. But yeah, I would definitely recommend if you want to play this and make it feel as modern as possible lower or make the crosshair smaller. And really quick, a lot of great accessibility in this, right? You can move the mini map. You can change certain colors. Like we saw with Halo Infinite, but they brought it to this where it's like, as Andy

said, you can make it kind of your own, which is very cool. Yeah. Go ahead, Kevin. No warning. You didn't tell me anything. I'm just going in raw here and I'm just trying to adjust. Ray has no idea of that. Am I getting attacked? Kevin, release the cats.

Part of the show. Do you feel, because I know the back half of Halo 1, at least for me, and I think it's somewhat a popular opinion, the back half of Halo 1 kind of is not as good as the first half. Do you think the change is visually and maybe things like Sprint or the variety of weapons improves the back half? Because a lot of people say, like, oh, you're just playing some of levels again, but backwards. I would say I haven't experienced a Halo campaign in over a decade at this point.

Paris, you played, you obviously beat the game and Mike also did. So we'll go with Paris first. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would say, yeah, I think it did improve it. That's what I was kind of alluding to before, where now that you've kind of modernized some of the movement and the weapons in the game, it makes that back. half, you know, post-library on, it plays a lot better for sure. Like I said, very familiar, but you can approach it a different way now. For me, I really like the back half now, right,

because of the lighting and the fidelity of the world, right? Like, we go from these experiences on the pillar of the pillar of autumn and then like the covenant ship and you're like, oh, like, wow, look at the colors. Look at all this. This is what I remember. And then when you get to the back half, you're like, oh, wow, now the flood is involved. Right. Yeah. Yeah. These two warring factions go at one another and the lighting has changed because the pillar bottom is destroyed, right? And so it's real dark and I'm flicking my flashlight on and off.

And it's exciting. I really do love the back half now because of that. And also Ray, for you, as I'm sure you've heard, but like they've added machinima mode right? You can let things happen. And so I'm watching with the free cam as like these two the hunters and the hunter

that's been affected by the flood are fighting each other in a river and I'm just watching it take place. It's like, really cool stuff that you can now do slash experience. And so, yeah, I really enjoyed the back half of the game, even if it's retreading areas. I liked the new look of the areas. That's great.

Because, yeah, the second half of the game is where I would, like, start dreading it. Like, here we go. But final level is the lowest hits. I can't wait to get to some super chats later on, Mike. Yeah. Oh, yeah. But first.

Oh, do I have to read something? No, you can just kick it to ads if you. Oh, yeah, see, it's highlighted yellow. Mm-hmm. It says in all caps. kicks to ads about 30 minutes in. I guess that's now. This week,

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Distractions. Conditions apply. Scotia Bank, you're richer than you think. Was that good? Was that very professional? I thought it was awesome. We were dying of laughter back here. I thought it was great.

I have a super chat here from Ty Wilkins' VO. Right, Ty. Who says, Raise 51 difference posting fee must be huge. Ope he tells them about the suit. Yeah.

Well, canonically, the suit jerks him off. That is true. That's how he stays so hyper-focused is because he's... Yeah. I hope they explain that in the bonus missions.

Don't focus on. No, no, girl, just focus on the game. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Ian Sen with a $5 super chat says, Hey, Ray, you're killing it, and can't wait to watch everything today and tomorrow. Thank you. Oh, yeah.

Again, Ray, where do you stream? That would be Twitch.tv slash Ray. I was able to just get R-A-Y from Twitch. So sick. Yeah, you were one of the first to get the three. Yeah, it took me six years of begging, but I finally got it. I'm like, please, I have the account.

We have a $10 super chat from Chaos Killer, who says, the new missions are original, but co-written by Troy Dennings, who wrote Silent Storm, Retribution, and Last Light. Did any of you three play the randomizer slash have any thoughts on it? Paris, I did not jump into the randomizer. I'd been itching to click on that. Let me get that really quick. What's that called?

That's called Campaign Remix, which is a new mode that randomizes your campaign experience. It's going to mix and match your skulls as you unlock skulls. Of course, you're going to build out the big 42 list lineup that they have. But when you do campaign randomizer, it will mix and match all the skull. So it always feels fresh and new, which is really exciting because I do love a good Halo Fiesta mode. Yeah, exactly. And so that's where my mind went to. But I did not jump into it at all as I was not collecting skulls my first time through.

So I've only unlocked about like two skulls. Okay, yeah, I was going to ask, are any available by default? Do you have to actually find all of them? Three off the bat are open right away. I don't. Is one of them the third person mode? No, I don't think so. I'm trying to remember what it is.

I think one of them might be the enemy factions don't fight each other. So that means they're going to only look at you. That was one of them trying to remember. I can't remember off the top of my head. Got it. So none of you experienced it or tried it in third person because I soon have to find the skull. I haven't played third person since my preview event. I enjoyed that I thought was fun, but I will always be a first person on the.

Yeah, that's fair. Yeah, same. I did it in the preview and like I'm a first person. Did it feel like fine? Or was it like kind of jarring? You're like, this feels this is weird. When you do the four-night emotes, it's kind of odd. Master Sheik just hit the dab.

When Cratos have got a lot more. Yeah. No, it felt fun, Ray. If you wanted to play it in third person, if that's your preferred style, I thought when we did the preview, it felt good to me. I was enjoying it. Third person and sprinting in Halo. Yeah. Elder with a $5 Superjet says, you guys mentioned the look of the game, but how is the audio?

Does it feel punchier than the original? The music would love your insights. I will say it just felt really cool and natural and not out of place. to have just awesome Halo music playing during the newer missions. It's just like, once you hear them fucking bongos

like, man, this fucking rules, man. You love Hela. Cool than when that builds. When those bongos start to build, you know you're in for it. I think they did a really cool job as well with the,

for the new three missions. They got some fun tracks on that because like, it is a heist. It is. We're trying to sneak onto this. I think they have a really cool music with that that really mixes well with it. Opponis Prime with a $5 super chat says

It's been so long since we've seen the flood How were they? Any behaviors, placement types largely the same? Are the levels one to one or expanded? Levels are pretty much one to one to one. Yeah, they're one to one. Yeah. I don't, based on what I've played,

I haven't, again, I haven't seen the flood yet in this newer version, but I haven't really noticed a whole lot to be able to say like the enemy behaviors, the AI is like so massively expanded. Like I always thought the enemy AI was really good in Halo as it was when it comes to, you know, certain enemies taking cover. When you throw a grenade elites are still diving out of the way.

Yeah, there are going to turn of grenades at you to kind of flank you out. Yeah. Mike, did you know anything like enemy behavior? No. Well, you know, on the AI side of things, I think we've just progressed so far in the 25 years that like I am noticing that they're doing a better job. being in cover coming after me.

But like on the flood side of things, it was just the detail for me. I mean, when that hunter gets taken over by the flood, it's a very cool look. And like I don't know quite where to shoot because it's all kind of flooding. Yeah. But it's awesome.

It's fleschy and flutty. It's cool looking. Yeah. If he's covered in the in the flood, do you still, can you still shoot him in the back with the pistol? Or is it just like all covered so you just need to like spray to him? I think you're shooting everything.

I mean, I'm usually running from them, Ray. So I had to the back side of the game. That's fair. Ryan Downing with a $2 Supertice says finally got to your Ray, got to your host, Ray is here. Ray. I'm doing my best. Ryan Downing also,

another Super Chat says, when can we do a four Zaddy party mode with Andy Ray, Rahul, and Paris? Everyone got me bricked up already. Let's do it. Love the fans. Absolutely, absolutely. I'm just a Billy. Actually, that was from Games Daily. So that's a bad job with me reading that Super Chat. Diego says, can we get Ray on kind of funny, a weekly thing, please? Who's with me?

The thing is, Ray, you know, he doesn't live here. True. And that's a big issue. Yeah. But we do have a lot of couch cushions. Ooh, we can make it happen. Yeah. Yeah, let's do it about it.

I only peed on one of them, Ram, sorry. I will love and cherish that one specifically. Yeah, when Mike walked a lot during the Death Stranding Marathon, he walked a lot. Did that take a lot out of you? They slept in a lot out of it. They slept in the studio and everybody was like, why is he doing laundry in the middle of the night? And we never really knew. And then he was like, my body got loose and I peed.

His body got loose. Sometimes that happens, right? A super chat from Nathan Haynes with a $10 super chat says, let's go. Got some Mountain Dew at home picking up a new Benjamin on the way home after I get work time to live like a 2001 again with my homies. I can't wait. Fuck yeah, dude. Ray, can you give me a memory of yours that you love with Halo and a midnight launch?

I think of Halo 3. Halo 3 was the, I was working at GameStop at the time, but I did. Power to the players. I mean, I feel like every gamer, streamer, content creator worked at GameStop at some point. Like your entry level. Yeah. And just seeing like around the block like two or three times, people are so excited,

but playing the music and just having like the old copies of the game and just making friends and whatnot was really, really cool. and the people coming out with the, I forgot what it was called, but the one that came with the helmet, like the super expensive version of Halo 3. Yeah, yeah, Halo 3. It was, like, that's not around really anymore.

Like, there's still midnight launches, but it's not as hype or anything like that. But that was, it's that, and then doing Halo land parties in my friend's basement. We had like 12 of us, three CRTs, split screen, some of the best moments of my life. Smelly balls.

It just smelled like ass. But we had Mountain Dew and pizza. It was iconic. Just a lot of fart and parmesan. Some of that has lost when you play online, but being next to someone, it's just, I don't know, makes it better, I would say. There was this, um, a crew at school that were like talking mad shit to me and my Halo crew. And one week in my parents were out of town.

I was like, you come to my house. Yeah. And we're going to four, we're going to four system link this shit and we're going to settle it. System like that's what was. And it wasn't even close. I was like, did you, you guys are just trolling then the whole time because we, this was like the easiest match. It was like really, really bad. And then we played hoops outside.

They just wanted to make new friends. Yeah, and they made me what it was. That was a roundabout way to make new friends. What it was. Fucking hymen, dude. God damn it. God damn it. Heath Polk with a super chat says,

I've only played infinite. How does this compare? Damn. If you've only played infinite, you're going to like this. Yeah. Because it's modern like infinite. Yeah.

You'll jump right on. It is different. There's some open world. You don't have like a grappling hook and stuff. So it's definitely more linear. But there's definitely way more. There's still fun to be had here. as long as you're okay with a more linear experience.

Yeah. Alex Fraser with a $5 SuperJat says, Kevin, release the cats. Release of Kevin, release. That's a new part of the bit. Paras, do you have any other thoughts about your Halo experience? I'm trying to think of what I've not already said.

I mean, I think the best thing that I can say is, excuse me, go through with you, you know, play it solo. But get a group together, play co-op. put it on legendary and just die a lot, laugh a lot, and just take that whole, the toy, you know, all the toys that they're going to give you in that sandbox and just just go have a blast through these levels, man. I mean, like I said, we're talking about a 25 year old game, but I think they've done enough here where people brand new to it are going to have a blast. And like I said, those bonus levels are fantastic. So, you know, it's, it's, it's halo. I mean, like the previous one was saying the differences between infinite and everything, like you said. I mean, there's, you know, it's slightly a step back from infinite, because obviously you had the grapple hook on all those things,

but it's just these classic levels. Like we're looking at right now, a photographer or whatever, it's, I love it. I don't even another way to say it. I just love playing these levels and reliving, you know, the memories that I've had, you know, playing Halo, but now I get to do it a little differently, which I think is what's great about this. Paris, what would you say to people that say,

should I play the new three levels first or after? I think if you've already played Halo, just jump into the bonus levels. If this is your first time playing Halo, do the original first. That'd be my opinion. I feel like you should do the Halo 10 missions first and then this, because those three are so freaking good.

But if you've already played this, then jump into the three. I am dying not being able to talk about the three missions because it is so cool. That good, huh? There are some moments where you're like, holy shit what do we do it here I liked it a lot

I will say just no you go ahead Paris because I wanted to talk about I wanted to take another tangent Okay then I'm gonna tangent you can tangent to tangent I mean it's Those bonus missions Had my mind wondering for what's next for Halo Like we've already talked about before

I mean we'll see I'm assuming in December When I think it's the Halo championships or something They'll probably start talking about That stuff for the 25th anniversary But I want to see what's next That's what this showed me that there is definitely a future for Halo in Unreal 5. So what are the next campaign missions going to look like? What are they going to do for multiplayer moving forward?

That's what excited me the most about playing those bonus missions. I was just going to bring up PC performance. I was really let down by PC performance during the beta or during the early access. Okay. We did. Just had a lot of issues with like, why am I only getting this frame rate? right right now. Frame ratemerch.net.

Dot com.com. Text the mail. Framatemerch.com. Everybody, go check it on. I was not super happy with the performance. I thought it was like, damn, this feels lacking. I think that whatever they did

in the time since a preview, in the missions that I have experienced, at least, have, like, just completely gone away. Again, I have a really good machine still, but I was still, it was one of those things where, like many PC games, you boot up nowadays, and you go, why the fuck am I?

Jagans Dogma, why am I getting 62 frames right now, man? Like, I have a really good machine. I think that they did a lot of awesome optimization work since the preview to make sure that things are running and looking great. And good God, like when you are in some of these hallways and those early missions on the pillar of autumn and the explosions that are taking out light sources and the grunts and the elites are flying all over the place

and everything's running really well. looking fucking awesome. It's really cool and impressive. Did you have any, like, awkward load times between levels or, like, I had a fair amount of pop-in. I felt like happened a lot of, like, the detail slowly loading in,

but there are some, I had some interesting, like, load screens here where the screen, like, goes black and, like, you can see it kind of, like, starts, like, fade, like a curtain's moving, and it's, like, clearly loading, and then it's like, okay, there was a couple, just, like,

I had a couple, like, long load screen. It felt like when we didn't know. What's happening? It felt like when we didn't know if somebody was going to drop out of a match in Halo when we're like, is everybody still in the party? Like, what the fuck? Is that the game or is that just Unreal Engine 5? I think that's probably just the game.

I know Unreal Engine 5 has its issues, but I think a lot of it is just, you know, trying to optimize and make things work and a bit, make things smoother, essentially. Got it. But I didn't have any of the issues like that. Paris, how about you? Yeah, I didn't have any issues at all. And, you know, I know I have a higher end PC, Rick, but I didn't see any pop-in technical issues.

Like I said, frame rate was solid. I mean, I had DLSS enabled, so it was fine. Yeah. No issues. It looked awesome. And visually, it's pretty fucking stunning in a lot of moments. Did you also play it on PC, Mike? Were you on console?

I did play on PC. Yeah, I did not play it on console on PC. We're excited. We're going to play it on PS5. That's going to be crazy. Well, Andy will be the one guy on PC. But our goal was, we're all we're going to play it on PS5. Oh, he's going to play it on PS5.

Is it crossplay or cross platform? Oh, nice, okay. So yeah, we were going to play it on PS5. Man, you were just really going to, like, go after the people that are like, well, it's not a PlayStation game. So, of course, it's kind of funny, didn't like it. It's a great game, though. I recommend it.

Do you wish there was multiplayer? Are you fine with it not having multiplayer? Competitive multiplayer, like PVPs stuff? I mean, I think it would be a solid couple of weeks of entertainment for me, somebody who's busy with a lot of different games or reviews as it is. But yeah, I, it does suck. It does suck. I would love to,

I would love to fucking be on whatever new or realized version of Hangum High is or Beaver Creek, Battle Creek. I forgot, one is Halo 1. Yeah, I believe Battle Creek is one. Because I always called Beaver Creek. Yeah, I would, I would have loved that. That would have been awesome, especially with the way the sprint feels now.

with the new weapons as well. And just visually, I, I've never been the type, I always get excited by the new things. Sure. I am like, I'm a product creator's dream because it's rare for me to be like, I don't like the new thing, yeah. Oh, this new thing sucks.

I'm always a fan of seeing how these artists are interpreting whatever the old work was and how they're going to make that material look and how that thing's going to be reflective, but that thing's going to, you know, it's so awesome to just see all of the, projectiles flying around through the world. I would have loved to have seen those older maps reimagined

even though when you think of like well hang up high it was just a bunch of cement blocks on the ground. Still. Whenever they remade it, it was like I guess here's these weird kind of hardware pieces in the ground sticking out of the ground, but I would have loved to have seen that. But Mike I think

felt really strongly about it. I mean, wizard hang them high, boarding action, right? Bording action, the one with the two ships. What's the love all the teleporters? That's a boarding act Or yeah, boarding acts Well, you jump back and forth The circular one with the four

Shiron Oh, Shiron is the one I was thinking of all yeah Because we would always do Shiron shotguns Yeah, that's the way to do it But yeah, Ray, I have a strong feeling on this one Of like, I do wish they did Multiplayer for this

I do wish they just did Hey, here's the original OG Halo 1 multiplayer In Unreal Engine 5 with the way this is I think you would have a killer Three Months span of nonstop Halo multiplayer talk right now when I look at the landscape and the genres and the games that are being played right now, I think

Halo would have had a Halo infinite type hype level for Halo 1 nostalgia. These are the multiplayer maps and it would die in three months, but guess what? It's a lot of games right after that. True. And so like I did think like this would be a killer Halo summer into Gears fall. That should have

been the Microsoft move here. Paris, what are you going to say? It's the biggest disappointment for me, not having the multiplayer for everything that Andy and Mike have already said i don't think either one of you said blood gult yet i mean it's like come on that's the OG captured a flag got to have that map but that's what i mean even if they just gave us the the c maps as a part of this you know not have the expectation they got to have a battle pass and my transaction it's just let us just go in and just play like mike said we have a summer of fun

playing a multiplayer all right we move on to something else but at least it's there and you know there's going to be a dedicated community that's just, they're just going to go back and play these over and over again. So that would probably be my biggest disappointment coming out of this, that they didn't have multiplayer because I just think it's a missed opportunity

to keep people engaged with the game over a longer period of time. Did they ever say why there's no multiplayer in this? Is it like they don't want to take players from Master Chief Collection and five or the maps don't work because you could sprint now or they just haven't said anything? I think a lot of it is

likely scope and them saying we want to sell this for 50 bucks everywhere and we have a limited limited time of resources. Let's hit this 25th anniversary day. Yeah, right, that's a big one. We have a limited time of work and scope to put into this because we would love to work on the next thing. And I mean, to be real, I think they look at the

multiplayer landscape around and going like, damn, everything is dying out there. And if you're not called duty or Fortnite or Counterstrike or the mainstays, it's really, really hard to thrive. And we've seen two canceled projects already on the multiplayer side. Yeah. To Tonka with the Battle Royale and whatever that other recent one was that was in the news last week or the week before. So clearly they were trying to lay on something or working on something.

And as we know, the multiplayer genre and the shooter genre right now is just so up and down. You don't know what's going to be hot or not. And that's why that Halo 1 multiplayer just do the small five, the 10, just the basic. Let's go three months to six months in the year. And then we'll be on to the next thing. Yeah, nothing crazy, no battle passes. Like Harris said, just the game.

So can we touch on that rumor for, again, it's a rumor. Who to frick knows how much is true that that came out last week. But let's pretend right now say that it is. That's concerning if there isn't, because I guess my assumption has been, all right, we're getting campaign evolved. We're going to get to December with the Halo Championships. they're going to debut something multiplayer-wise. If we get to December and there's nothing there

and we're still two or three years away, not good. Not good for Halo because you're going to lose that momentum that I think this game is going to start. You would think, all right, now we get to continue it with, even if it's just in a beta mode or whatever, right? Going into 2027, there's something new multiplayer for Halo. So I'm here to tell you, I hope it's not true.

I really hope it's not true because they need something multiplayer moving forward with Halo beyond what we got right now in Infinite. I like that, Paris, but I would push back a little bit with the looming GTA-6 conversation, right? And how we talk about that's going to suck the air out of a lot of the games industry come November into next year and beyond, right? Where I'm almost on the opposite side of like, hey, like, let's put Halo in the freezer and you come back with the next big Halo project with the multiplayer attached. and let's have the official reboot of Halo, right? And as I've said before, let's get other studios working on different Halo games that can complement that during the downtime.

But I don't think you launch just a multiplayer-only thing now. I feel like Halo to me is campaign a multiplayer together have to be one. Yeah, campaign multiplayer for. Well, I'm thinking it more like an early access, Mike. I'm not even saying that it's, hey, we're working on the next full Halo 7 campaign, but here's some early access stuff of some, maybe some, concept maps or whatever of what they're doing for the next multiplayer just to keep people engage and excited about it i guess that was my only thing if there's just nothing there and we're

just defaulting back to what we already have with infinite and we know they've stopped you know adding new features or anything to infinite that that would be kind of a step back for them so again fingers crossed we get to december and there's at least something i think we've just kind of caught them at an odd time though like we've caught them at a the anniversary is landing in the most awkward of spots where there's just turmoil and they are rebooting things, refreshing things, telling teams, whatever you're working on, scrap that shit. Like, I think if the Phil Spencer-Serabon regime were still there and there hadn't been all this upper management turmoil, we may have gotten that.

But I think anything that may have been possibly planned is either getting changed up or refocus your energy on whatever other project that you kind of had, you know, in development. in. I don't know. It's kind of just a really not great time to to see what they were working on because I don't, it's a good chance. It comes at the worst time though with the 25th anniversary. I guess that's kind of

my thing. You have the big four too. This was supposed to be the year where you just dominate and take over from Forch at the start. Now Halo here in the summer. Years in the fall. Yeah, fable's in the spring next year, but still, that's a long roadmap of like great Xbox titles finally

come into it, celebrating 25. That was a big deal is right. Yeah. I have a fun little segment to wrap up the show, Andy. Are you ready? Yeah. Give me a beat for it. Yeah, fuck, Andy.

I'm the host. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, I'm ready. I'm ready. Are you going to sing to me? Yeah, yeah, no, no, no. I can't sing to me. What is the name?

These are, this is, like, seven simple pleasures in the name. Ooh, okay. Simple simple, simple pleasures. I said the word wrong. Seven simple pleasures. I got it right there, though. Oh, wait, that was you singing. That wasn't Michael McDonald.

What kind of scam you're running here? Guys, I want to share some of my simple pleasures in Halo. The things that just make me smile. Okay. Because I want to share some awesome in the world of Halo. And I want you guys to build off this because I know you have some simple pleasures. Now, this is just really kind of dealing with the campaign. I didn't add multiplayer into this.

Is this just for this Halo? Yeah. Kind of all of Halo. Okay, sure. But feel free to build off of what I got. Let me give you my seven. You ready for this? I'm ready.

At number one, the Halo 1, Pils. pistol. The look, the sound, the feel of the bounce back as you smash shots, head shots, all shots, around corners. It's just the best. How overpowered it is, yeah. I mean, it's, it's the, you play pistols on goddamn, the only weapon you need. Yeah. All you need this. Number two, the sound of the energy shield, breaking and then recharging. Ooh. Boop, bo, bo, bo, bo, bo, yep. Are we just going with sounds now? Hitting that sticky plasma grenade just right,

attaching it to a forehead, a foot, an arm, anything. It just feels great to hit that throw. And those little fucking grunts run at you when you stick them. It's like, oh, shit. Take you down. Number three, or number four, absolutely ripping in the ward hog. That two-stick control scheme, they got it so awkward, but at the same time, so right.

When you hit the perfect drift, when you stop on a dime before flying off the edge, When you line up your gunner just in the right spot to let them loose on an enemy drop ship, or when you just smash batty's across the front bumper, it just feels so good. Breaking Shields is also really, really tough. The first time I was playing Halo, I could not comprehend as a 12-year-old the two sticks to drive. I'm like, I'm just doing donuts and not making any progress. But now I'm like, oh, this is genius.

Constant roll over. Yeah, I'm just like, I'm just going to walk. This is a fun one because they added it to Halo 1 for this campaign evolved. the perfect hijack of a ghost or a bansche that comes by you. Nothing cooler than seeing that animation. Or when he jumps up and grabs the banshee and then he kicks you out of the pilot seat and then he takes off, God, it's the coolest. Number six of seven, that soundtrack that just builds up to a corner

and some of the tight alien-like corridors and then bang, some of the best music and video games blasts through my speakers. God. It's iconic. Yeah. And then number seven, taking a shock. to the flood to the flood grunts as they burst into a million pieces. Oh, the popcorn ones, yeah.

It's just the best, man. When you turn the corn and you got a shotgun and there's a lot of shotguns in the flood sections and you hit them just right. It's like the gears of war, Nassar shotgun. Oh, yeah, when they explode in the pieces. When you see this with the new detail and look of the flood and you give them one, it's the best, y'all. Seven simple pleasures for Mike.

For me, it's not exclusive to Halo 1, but I guess it could work in Halo 1. It's more of a Halo 2 thing. It's hitting the noob combo back in the day. Charged up plasma pistol, clear the shield, battle rifle shot. Cinema. And then I was sending you a message on Xbox. Yeah, you were calling me a pussy bitch. You were calling me slurs I hadn't heard about 15 years old.

Seven simple pleasures from Ray. What about you, Paris? Do you have any seven simple pleasures? I think Mike nailed it because mine is that sticky. Getting that sticky grenade, man. And if you make that perfect throw, it's, it's all. always so good. For me, it was sticky grenades on either an enemy warthog or a ghost.

And just seeing the, their, their physics system was so incredible. And just seeing shit fly and spin around in the, in the sky was always hilarious. Or being, you know, playing with friends and then being in a wardhog when you get stuck on your vehicle. Just a panic. Flying the fuck you out. Like, oh my God, it's just so much fun. SWATs, multi-air SWAT. God, dude.

Do you remember something on getting stuck in a Wart Hock? An old, old video, a guy just loads a bunch of grenades by a Warthawk, then he throws a sticky, he grabs an overshield, and it flings them. I think it's on a sign cartographer, and he lands on top of a tower. This is like a classic video from like, that feels like 20 years ago. Or something like old YouTube. I forgot what it was called, but like Tower Jump or something.

Maybe someone in the chat will know, but it's a classic. Now I'm just taking to the Super Jumping. on ascension in halo. Oh, yeah, dude. The coolest, man. All the secrets. Classic Warthog, Joe. Simple pleasures.

Simple pleasures right there from Mike. Seven of them even. Yeah. I got nothing else. Is that everything, boys? I think that's it, man. There's the cats. See, I don't know if you just added that or that.

That's just the cue that it's over. I'm living in fear. Very, very common little topic of the show that we do that we unleash the cats. And we unleash the cats. of the show as well, Ray. Tank.

Load the... What the hell is that? I don't... Oh, Kevin's probably loading the video. Oh. The Halo Wardhog jumps. I wasn't losing my mind. Vimeo.

A Vimeo video? Holy shit. Oh, my God. 2002. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Wardhog jump. Yeah, this is a...

Zach. You can tell some old video. I'm sad we don't have like the blue. I'm actually shocked by how good the video quality is, because I'm just... so used to seeing like old Vimeo pixelated and stuff, yeah.

Vimeo always had the game. Oh yeah, okay. Yeah, he loads all these grenades on the ground, I think. Holy shit. Yeah, just doing a bunch of like jumps like this. This is, I remember watching this video in high school.

And then you would watch Boom Headshot guy. Yeah, and then I would log on to the Roustieth website. I'd hope I worked there one day. We have a super chat here from Andrew Draper who says, hi, hi, Tina's husband. Yo.

Another super chat from Sandy Crane that says, this is already leaning into the core audience with just campaign. Adding a baseline old-school multiplayer would still be in scope for what this is. I mean, it's hard to say. Yeah, I agree. We always wanted it. It would have been awesome, but it's just hard to say what is in scope for them in terms of their, you know, I guess future workload.

Cruiser with a $2 superjit says, hey, Ray. Loved Achievement Hunter and the early streams. Hope Paul's as well. he still streams at Twitchot TV Just my new streams, suck ass, I'll keep that much. Yeah. Yikes. I'm just, I'm just the Billy says, what's next for Halo Studios?

Two and three remake or Halo 7? Oh yeah, do you want them to go like Halo 2 remake or work something new? Like I'm, uh, Halo 7, I guess. I guess six. One, no. Halo 7 simple pleasures? Yeah. What did you say, Paris?

Both. I want, I want Halo 7, but I want Halo 2 and Halo 3 in this style as well. I want the remakes of Halo 2 and 3 right now just so we can have that lined up. That's a great way to keep a modern and in my life. I'm excited to see Halo 7 and what they're going to do. I want machine games or ID to come in and make a Halo ODST video game. I want Halo Wars made by the Age of Mythology or Age of Empires team.

I want an RTS. I want a destiny like Halo where we are master chief of our own Spartans and we are getting the loot and build of a garage. of kind of that shared open. Like a looter shooter? Yeah, MMO world. I'd like a looter shooter. I want so much out of hail.

I'm the halo like mega fan. My game. So I want everything. They have a lot to pull from. I mean, Mike, if you think about it, we just saw it last week with what Bethesda announced with their roadmap. I honestly not be shocked to see something very similar with Halo. I agree, Paris.

We've said it before in the show, especially on the X-Cast with Paris. Like when Asha now has come in and we talk about like the flagship, franchises and now we're going to support those with other studios like we saw with Fallout and now Obsidian and like announcing all of these things. Halo is up there for sure Fallout and Elder Scrolls are up there. There's a couple of key titles in this gigantic Xbox game studio lineup that's like yeah we're going to have to put all of our effort into that right now. Wow. $51 super chat from Tina Narvay's Jr. The new host on the left is really cute. Damn. Thank you. I mean from what I'm saying it's Andy. I agree.

Camera left, camera left. Before we wrap up, do you think Halo going forward is also going to be on PlayStation? Or do you think this is a one and done? One and done. Not even the other two remakes pairs? I think because of the new administration

and the way they're moving, if Gears isn't going to be on PlayStation, you're going to tell me the literal IP that defines Xbox would be, I can't see it. I feel the same way. I love the exclusive. I love the exclusive.

because, yeah, if you want to make this work, every single game has to be exclusive. You have to start giving people the reason why they need that, and you need to continue to make these great games and say, hey, I got it over here. You got to be here, right? And so, yeah, the exclusive talk is fun because there's a lot of back and forth

of, like, odd decisions being made where it's like, it's simple. Just make great games and make them exclusive, and that's what you have to do. It's console exclusive because they'll be on PC. Of course. I like the PC launch still. I'm on more for the PC launch.

The, how do y'all feel about the Xbox app? On PC? Yeah. It needs a lot of work. Hey, yes. It's, I mean,

I don't use it too much, but when I do use it, it's fine. But I heard horror stories of people, just things not loading or, you know, things like that. But a couple times I use it,

it's fine. But yeah, it's no steam. Yeah. You know? Yes, sir? What's up, Mike? Are you almost done?

Oh, yeah? Okay, before we have on the show, you played backyard baseball yet? I have played backyard baseball. Thoughts? Pretty good. Okay, I love to do that. Oh, you know, here's another thought.

Here's another non-Hilo question. When I found out that the new NCAA had the mascot mode and then chat was like, well, the last one had it also, Andy. Because I was like, oh, shit. Yeah, excited to see Ray. Do you think that they improved it because they said that you didn't love last years? No, the one I played that just came out, it seems like a very stripped down version. So when you buy the game normally, you get 10 of the 100. 20 mascots and you have to unlock them manually

or pay for the Super duper VIP Fuck You Edition where you unlock all of them Yeah So it's very they bastardized it They bastardized it Yeah I don't like that I gotta unlock them Yeah yeah like that fucking That is a huge grind that I don't have

Or if you have to unlock them give us more than 10 Give us like 40 Yeah I don't know Unfortunate Well that's gonna do it for us everybody Yeah am I doing the outro I would say so yeah Yeah oh god

Hit us with that outro This has been kind of funny games cast each and every weekday, we get together to talk about the biggest reviews, previews, and topics and video games live on YouTube, Twitch, and podcast services around the globe. If you love what we do, please support us with the Kind of Funny membership on Patreon, YouTube, Apple, or Spotify to get all of our shows at ad-free and get a daily exclusive show. Promote the next show.

I don't know what it is. Andy, Mike, what's coming up next? After this. Help. Help me. Kind of funny games cast plays where me, Blessing, and Ray will be playing Splatoon Raiders. More me. Raid. Raiders. I'm so sorry.

And then, yeah, so that was the next show. And I think that's it. Until next time, it's been our pleasure to serve you. Thank you for putting up with me. Help me. They're not letting me leave. Paris, it was nice to be to you. What the fuck is it that? Nice to mean you as well, Ray. Rosen lasagna, medium power. 15 minutes. Sounds like Ojo time. Let's play.

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