I had nothing better to do so I kept at it. My Legendary run was far easier then I have ever experienced before. The weapons in this game seem to be more powerful. I died more in the Keyes and The Maw missions then I did in all the preceding missions. Maybe it is the experience of playing the original game for over 20 years, but Legendary did feel much easier. The Keye, The Maw missions and Guilty Spark maps were hard......I think they doubled the number of Flood Infectious Forms in these missions.....it got a little tiring fighting so many of them.

I run Windows 11 Pro and I was worried the game crashing and the rebooting I experienced would corrupt my Windows installation. Its a fairy new computer with all the modern goodies inside....which I have never had before. I've spent 35+ years building computers for friends and family member, and I somehow never managed to build had a truly modern system until after I retired.

I did notice the new game really causes my gpu to get very hot, usually around 95c at full 4k resolution. I switched it to 1080p and the gpu temperature remains at about 90c. I currently use an Radeon RX 7600 XT with 16 gigs of vram. This is a lower end 4k card and I'll probably have to upgrade to a better gpu, except the prices of higher end graphics cards are criminally and outrageously overpriced. I'll check out Ebay some day for a better gpu because I can't justify spending over $1000 dollars for one.

When I run the Master Chief Collection, my gpu fans rarely turn on at all. I'm a little worried that the game will overheat my Xbox Series X. When I play Gears of War 5, my Xbox Series X gets extremely hot so I added extra fans at both ends of the console.....it seemed to help the console to run cooler.

: I've been watching some footage, but not enough to get a sense of this. Seems
: surprising. In some particular area where the remake matches H1 in terms
: of Marine or Grunt numbers, maybe you could do some testing, to gauge the
: dialogue differences more fully.

: For me that would probably be a positive. If an Elite isn't giving me the old
: "Wort wort wort" or one of his other H1 deliveries, I don't
: wanna know! I was never a fan of Elites switching to speaking English.

The "Wort wort wort" Elite is in the game, I hear it all the time.

I like the Halo 2 Elites dialogue. Some of it was comical.

: I think I already said in an earlier comment that I didn't like the stainless
: steel look of things (rooms, bridges and so on). Looks very brutal and
: industrial, and cold. Hard on the eyes too perhaps.

I agree. The lighting in the interior areas is terrible and way too dark. I find I have to use the flashlight a lot just to see the details of the enemies. Maybe I don't have my video settings adjusted correctly. I'll look into that next time I play

: I hear that modders are already busy working on stuff, including replacing
: Cortana's new voicing with the old. My impression has been that her
: deliveries are quite a bit different to before. I was actually just
: watching some footage where she does her opening line at AOTCR's first
: bridge. She really draws it out, and it's as if Jen Taylor is working too
: hard to find new intonations just for the sake of it.

The modders are doing some fantastic work with the game. I've downloaded several mods but I haven't installed any yet. I'll try out a few and soon as I finish the Bonus Missions on all difficulties. I think Jen's performance wasn't too bad. Like you said she does draw out her dialogue a little. I blame it on poor direction and Jen was just doing what she was directed to do.

: After I read that, I actually looked on YouTube for videos focused on weapon
: comparisons, but it was frustrating that nobody showing the needler
: bothered to include the needle explosion sound, a critical facet of the
: weapon. That H1 bang was always so satisfying! Couldn't find a good video
: on the new needler, compared with the old.

I looked as well, but apparently you and I are the only old school players that love the Needler :)

I'll make a short video showing the new needler and its audio in a few days. Its very different
then the original. I've used my normal techniques attempting to trigger new marine dialogue but nothing happens.

What I normally do with the marines, in the original game, was to enter an area with the covies long enough for them to see me. The marines hang back if I hang back, but if I engage the enemies the marines will actively engage the enemies, and that normally triggers their dialogue. This doesn't work at all. If I change weapons with any of the marines they only say a few lines of dialogue. It's a very quiet battlefield in this new game regarding the missing combat dialogue.

I'll get to recording a video of the new needler in a few days. I'm 65 years old now and playing for several days has taken a toll on me old hands :)