Analysis: Why The Halo CE Pistol Is Not Overpowered

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Contents Of This Video

00:00 THE Most Misunderstood Gun In Gaming
00:44 IntoTheAM
02:06 Where Did The Misunderstandings Come From?
04:20 3 Shots Are Not Common
05:41 FAST Time To Kill
07:25 Assault Rifle & CE's Melee System
09:44 Playing Around Power Ups & Grenade Usage
12:18 Conclusion

[Jarekthegamingdragon]

Thank you INTO THE AM for these Elevated Everyday Graphic Tees! Get yours now and get 10% off site-wide when you click the link below:
WOO This video took a while to make. I had procrastinated making this for a long while. I hope you liked it!
EDIT: "This is just a tryhard doing mental gymnastics, CE Magnum is op, cope!" This is a long time competitive player explaining the Combat Evolved meta. This is how it is, it's not a theory, it's literally what you see every single game with players that understand the game. You do not understand the game like you think you do and are coping. I am trying to teach people about a game I love, now get good.

[AlyxGMusic]

Came in expecting an analysis of the magnum compared to other Halo games, left terrified of ever playing CE multiplayer ever again.

[sirmerc]

I feel that people don't talk about CE's multiplayer enough. Love this game.

[voidishprattles]

I've always felt like CE is just "heavier" than the other games. I'm way too young to have enjoyed CE multiplayer so I've only ever played the campaign.

While i feel like some things haven't aged super well in the story, specifically all the driving around, I personally love vehicle combat so i enjoy the driving but a lot of people I'll play with say it's boring... But the one thing i always felt was perfect in CE is the guns.

I hate how in later Halo games they made guns either super situational or just straight up suck. CE is the only halo game i can pick up a plasma pistol and kill a whole room of enemies with it and I always felt that rocks.

Just the small things you point out here made me realize that, like how the plasma rifle melts through enemies and feels heavy but in later games good luck killing anything that isn't a grunt before it over heats.

Idk it's just fun playing Halo where I'm not just rocking the battle rifle/DMR the whole time.

[maxburrill]

Honestly, CE actually nailed the weapon balance. They're all viable and powerful.

H2 and 3 were a little too BR-focused, which kinda detracted from the multiplayer experience IMO.

[lionheart]

An interesting fact about the Magnum; it was buffed right in the final hours of development, basically via a hack, in a sort-of Hail Mary attempt to make it a viable weapon. It does kinda explain why it's able to one-shot Hunters so easily, I imagine before the hack Hunters were actually a threat and not a fun little treat.

I rememeber the Halo 2 BR used the Magnum's HUD elements in early alphas, so I imagine the BR is a direct evolution of it game object wise like you say. Cool learning about CE's sandbox, didn't know most of this stuff.

[kid]

A lot of people just treat Combat Evolved like a standard first-person shooter when in reality it's closer to an arena shooter

[pie]

for me, a lot of the knocking on the CE magnum in my groups comes from people who simply never saw utility in any of the other weapons for reasons ranging from 'Gearbox Port' to "I never play on maps with corridors"

[WikiThis]

8:28
I definitely agree about the melee animations. There is a lot more personality with each melee hit compared to later games. I absolutely loved feeling like I'm punching grunts to death with the might of Zeus or bashing skulls in with the butt of the shotgun.

[johnshank]

Man it's just the sheer fact that the Halo CE Magnum isn't nearly as precise as the BR was in H2. I mean you wanna talk overpowered, the BR's precision was insane.

[Sheftyyy]

I appreciate you making this video. HPC/HCE was my childhood, and I had ~8000 hours combined when Xfire (Stealthy4u was my xfire) went down. I played with some of the best Halo 1 PC players back in the day, was in countless clans, competed in HPT tournaments, etc. Lots of players these days don't know what it was like back then, and it was nostalgic hearing some of these strats and any additional appreciate HCE gets is a win. There's several other strats left out here (Backpacking, flag tossing, flag quick capping, the quick reload by meleeing during the animation, etc., and that just is the tip of how complex this game was, especially competitively. You covered your highlighted ones very well, and I'm always happy to see other OGs make videos about CE.


I made a lot of friends over the years from scrimming, pubbing and tourneys, and still talk with many of them today. I even started a petition to raise awareness to Bungie to either move halo to steam or patch the game to keep the server list alive once the news that Gamespy was closing their doors and would stop hosting the custom game list, and the petition ended with ~17, 000 signatures (Though I doubt it really did anything), but regardless it was a fun communal experience with other Halo lovers.


I still play MCC today and am constantly in Halo CE custom browser servers (Sheftyyy is my GT). Anyone who would like to run some games feel free to hit me up.

[SR-]

I'd also like to mention, each weapon has a different melee range as well as different speeds, the rockets and ar have the furthest range in ce, making em the best option for double melee's

[SNOWDUDE]

Whenever I had to argue about the pistol back in the day, I had to say just three words.

It's A Magnum

And it always made people realize the correct answer.

[KrazyKain]

I'm glad you started with the comparison with the raw dps of the assault rifle because that was enough to make your point. The rest of the stuff, while fascinating strikes me as very high level play and not the sort of moves a casual player would be doing. I think its fair to say that if a gun is overpowered in casual non high level play then it might still be fair to call it overpowered. (I'm not saying that applies to this pistol)

[TCskates]

This has knowledge lost to the sands of time and deserves a lot more views

[TheMC]

I think the CE Magnum is the second most misinderstood gun in gaming, the first being the Doom 3 Shotgun.

[TheVengefulVadam]

Thank you so much for making this video ❤

Edit: I do have one thing I’d like to correct. The H2 BR projectiles are actually not that much faster than the CE pistol’s most of the time. The BR’s velocity is 400 World units per second while the pistol’s is 324. Thing is, the BR becomes hitscan when achieving red reticle, and I believe this was done for XBL networking reasons in the days of dialup connections. On BTB maps, you actually do need to lead with the BR to achieve hits at a distance.

[jaysanj]

Considering the AR is my Favorite out of the Halo CE weapons, seeing that Double melee really made me go in awe.
It almost as if it came straight out off a fighting game, which explains why it's a tricky to pull off let alone in other weapons.

[henryfleischer]

I mostly play singleplayer and co-op, and I really like the CE magnum. I feel like most of the time, pistols in first person shooters are useless after the start of the game.

[dearcastiel]

"Why the magnum is not overpowered"

Me, cleaning the campaign on Legendary with a magnum 90% of the time: "yes"