Video Game / Cursed Halo

Take a chance on me...

"Today, I have the utmost pleasure of showcasing a complete overhaul of Halo 1. Designed with the explicit intent of being so unfathomably cursed, that it can be used as final proof that we are indeed living in the darkest timeline."

— InfernoPlus, introducing the mod

Cursed Halo is a Game Mod for Halo: Combat Evolved made by InfernoPlus and released in December 2019. As the title suggests, the mod takes Halo's gameplay and turns it on its head, with every weapon and vehicle being some variation of Joke Item or Lethal Joke Item. The mod has progressively received new updates over time; Version 2, titled New Super Cursed Halo: Undefined Edition, was released in July 2022 for the MCC in response to charity events where streamers raced the mod competitively to raise money. Version 3, titled "Cursed Halo Again", was released on April 2023 and added even more ridiculous items.

Versions 1 and 2 of the mod can be launched through Halo: Custom Edition using the Gearbox Software port and can be downloaded HERE. Support for Custom Edition has been dropped as of Version 3, with the mod now being exclusively available on the Mustard Beef Connection version of Combat Evolved, downloadable from the Steam Workshop HERE.

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Tropes present in Cursed Halo, note that tropes pertaining to the original game also apply here.

• Absurdly-Long Limousine: The Warthog Sedan has two seat rows plus the chaingun turret in the back; not absurd, but the elongated wheelbase is along the lines of a crew cab pickup truck. The Warthog Limo, or "Abomination" as the game calls it, is three seat rows and starts becoming absurd. The update adds an even longer variation from Inferno's attempts to elongate the vehicle in a previous video.
• Adaptational Early Appearance: Not only do Jackal Snipers show up early, but the Jackals carrying wooden Minecraft items fill a similar niche to the Skirmishers.
• Anti-Frustration Features: You only need to be in first, second, or third place in Halo Kart to proceed to the next track.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Invoked with "Death Islet"; Death Island but shrunken down to the point where all players, weapons and vehicles are gigantic by comparison.
• Backwards-Firing Gun:
  • The M6R Reverse Throwing Pistol. Clicking the fire button shoots yourself, you instead have to hold the fire button and release it to throw it. This results in several darkly hilarious instances of marines repeatedly blasting themselves between the eyes while fighting the Covenant and even Captain Keyes shooting himself in the head as the Flood attack in the helmet recording.
  • The Inconvenient Rocket Launcher also fires backwards but since it fires over your shoulder, it will fly forward out of your hands, requiring you to pick it back up in single-player.
• Blown Across the Room: The best part is all of these effects can be amplified with the "Sputnik" Skull if playing on the Mustard Beef Connection.
  • The Blunderbuss will send even the heaviest vehicles tumbling and lighter targets will be catapulted clear out of the map.
  • A rare drop from single player D20 grenades can be a Knockback VII Diamond Sword which will send even the feared Hunters sailing into the distance. Version 3 gives this enchantment to the Diamond Axe instead.
  • The "Push" Toolgun does Exactly What It Says on the Tin.
  • The Shade Turret has been made lightweight, allowing you to roll it about just by meleeing it, combine this with the aforementioned weapons and/or the "Sputnik" Skull and you can make them effectively vanish from existence.
  • The newest additions include an absolutely massive version of the Magnum Pistol, which generally has some light Blunderbuss qualities but is specially designed to have a massively increased effect against grunts, cartoonishly splattering the walls with their blood.
• Boom, Headshot!: A vital mechanic for the NES Zapper which only deals one damage on a body shot but is a One-Hit Kill upon a headshot.
• Bullet Hell: Hunters have been turned into this; not only do they fire the Quad Laser but they can also fire a barrage of smaller lasers and a beam not unlike their future counterparts.
• Bullet Time: The Potion of Swiftness not only briefly speeds you up but also temporarily halts everything else. The effect is a bit... Glitchy...
• The Cameo: During the Halo Kart sequence, one of your rival duo teams is, for no particular reason, Dante and Goku.
• Charged Attack: The "Normal" Plasma Pistol has a twist. It takes an absurdly long time to charge, firing it at half charge in single-player fires a fuel rod blast and letting it charge until it detonates fires off a cataclysmic explosion. In multiplayer, only the uncharged and nuclear-charged shots can be fired due to the netcode.
• Denser and Wackier: The entire point of Cursed Halo. From Banshees that flap like birds to a Garry's Mod Toolgun that just crashes the game, every addition in the mod is in service of making the weirdest version of Halo ever.
• Double Jump: Reaching the locked door in "The Silent Cartographer" has Chief duct-tape a pair of magnums to each of his ankles, allowing him to Double Jump. As a bonus, it also powers up his crazy-ass Bruce Lee kick ability by having the pistols fired mid-kick.
• Dual Wielding:
  • Halo 2 may have introduced the idea to the franchise but this mod adds the ability to triple wield Plasma Rifles. You even get two extra arms: one for the third rifle and another for throwing grenades and melee attacks.
  • One of the rare D20 drops and part of your beginning arsenal in The Library is a pair of M6D Magnums which function unusually normal for the mod. The cursed aspect comes from the fact that you're dual-wielding the overpowered Hand Cannon in Combat Evolved.
• Duct Tape for Everything: Twice in Version 3's campaign, Master Chief gains new attacks by duct-taping Magnums to his body. The presence of duct tape on a Halo installation is comically explained by Cortana as them being "Forerunner artifacts".
• Explosive Overclocking: The Battery Rifle is an Assault Rifle replacement that fires faster the longer the trigger is held down, reaching an obscenely fast fire rate before it explodes in the player's hands.
• Flying Car: The Normal Warthog whose wheels turn downward, allowing it to fly without the need for roads.
• Hand Cannon: Version 3 introduces the Really Big Pistol, an enormous M6D Magnum which can send enemies flying, and has such severe recoil that it damages the player when fired.
• Homing Projectile:
  • The Magical Girl Gun, a variation of the Plasma Pistol that fires homing hearts projectiles. In multiplayer, these shots also briefly stun other players.
  • The Needler is replaced by a Snarker, in which the needles instead bounce around after friend and foe alike, it's even possible for them to chase after you if you're not careful.
  • The cursed variant of the Wraith summons five plasma shots, acting functionally identical to the Homing Soulmass and Pursuers spells.
• I Need to Go Iron My Dog: Sergeant Johnson claims that his cat is on fire if you play on The Library on Legendary and then promptly bails.
• Interface Screw:
  • For blinding, we have D20s that can set off a flashbang, and on the opposite end there's Splash Potions of Blindness.
  • In terms of controls, there's the inverted Magnum, which functions identical to the vanilla M6R but your controls are inverted (which happens to also transfer to the other player in co-op due to the way it's scripted].
  • A Downplayed example in the form of the Bent Shotgun which correspondingly shifts the reticule to the left. Superior in every way to lowered crosshairs!
• Jiggle Physics: The Flaccid Sniper Rifle as a rather... wiggly barrel as you turn and move about, not helped by the rather cartoonish springing noise every time it's fired.
• Luck-Based Mission: The M9 HE-DP Grenades have been replaced by D20 Frag Grenades. In PvP Multiplayer, they simply roll a random amount of damage. In Campaign, however, they roll from a massive table of random effects which range from spawning weapons and powerups, a fully nude cut out of Thanos^note Censored as of Version 2 , a wide variety of explosions, or a white glowing ball that plays a snippet from "Take a Chance on Me" before doing something incredibly cursed, good or bad.
  • For extra fun, allied marines can and will throw their own grenades at times, and dropped grenades can also be set off by other explosions.
  • There is also the "Random" Tool Gun variant, which can apply the effect of any other tool gun when fired or cause one of the D20 outcomes.
• Making a Splash: The Defoiliant Projector has been replaced by a Super Soaker and even features a Secondary Fire that acts like F.L.U.D.D.'s Rocket Nozzle.
• Overheating: Many Covenant weapons as per the original game, but the Battery Rifle is a notable human inclusion. The weapon slowly spools up as you fire it but firing for too long will cause it to explode in your hands.
• Macro Zone: The cursed version of Battle Creek in PvP Multiplayer is scaled to the point that vehicles are now viable.
• Mundane Made Awesome: One of the more beneficial D20 grenade outcomes grants the player the original weapons, which is possible since the modded weapons are separate weapon tags added to the game rather than hard replacements for anything. And after what you've had to make do with before then (and likely failed), you're probably going to cherish the unaltered weapons like your firstborn children.
• Not His Sled: Some additions to the mod are designed to trip up players who are used to certain exploits and speedrunning tricks in the original Combat Evolved.
  • Using the Hoglet to get past the door before it locks in "The Silent Cartographer" replaces the chapter title "Shafted" with "You are really going to regret doing that". The result is an absurd amount of enemies on the way down to the cartographer and on your way back out.
  • In the final section of "Assault On the Control Room" when you locate the titular structure, you can drop from the rock bridge onto a sloped beam and walk up to the entrance. Here, Inferno put a random piece of concrete to keep you from doing this and should you jump over it anyway, the game will drop a pair of Hunters on the beam.
• Non-Standard Game Over: Failing all three questions of 434 Passive Aggression's math quiz at the ending of "The Library" will have him give a "Reason You Suck" Speech to the player and the door will remain locked, soft-locking the level.
• Painfully Slow Projectile: The mod transforms the Fuel Rod Gun (both man-portable and Hunter Assault Cannon variants) into the all powerful Quad Laser. The projectile is enormous! There is no escaping! Jumping is useless!
  • In a twist on the concept, Version 2 introduced another cursed Sniper Rifle variant called the Buffering Rifle; while not comically inaccurate like its Flaccid counterpart, this rifle instead experiences a slight YouTube lag buffer between pulling the trigger and when the shot is actually fired.
• Pathetic Drooping Weapon: The Flaccid Sniper Rifle, with a drooping barrel and "impotent" x1 magnification scope. In-game, it has a massive reticle and is so inaccurate that it's practically a miracle if you hit anything with it. Apparently this happens to one in every four snipers.
• Power-Up Food: A potential Campaign D20 Grenade outcome is a bottle of NAU. Drinking it will fully heal you if you have less than full health while drinking it at full health grants you an Overshield.
  • As of Version 3, the role has been taken over by Minecraft potions, coming in standard drinkable, splash and lingering varieties. The effects of these potions are deliberately hidden from the player, with the HUD only stating that they picked up a "mysterious potion". The only way potions can be distinguished is by colour, meaning that the player will need to test out whether the potion they're holding is one that grants desirable effects like Active Camouflage or Overshield or is one that... just kills them.
• Product Placement: One of the items is NAU Energy Drink, included because NAU sponsored InfernoPlus as he was making the mod.
• Recoil Boost: The Blunderbuss actually adheres to Newton's third law in that the user is Blown Across the Room the same amount as the victim, making it possible to "Blunderjump" as mod creator InfernoPlus refers to it. Chief even makes use of a dual-wielded blunderjump to make it to the Pillar of Autumn in the final level.
• Recursive Ammo: The Plasma Grenade has been replaced with the Plasma Bukkake. Instead of the grenade being used to cause chain reactions, it is the chain reaction as the grenade breaks up a few meters after being thrown. Inferno notes that he based it on the Fractal Grenade from Tribes: Ascend.
• Retraux: A variant of the Plasma Rifle is "bit-crushed" with simplified sprite animations, often compared to Doom or Duke Nukem 3D.
• Rock Beats Laser: The mod has the Diamond Sword, Diamond Axe, and Wooden Bow, and it's entirely possible to utilize these weapons to full effect against the technologically superior Covenant.
  • Though as of the latest version, the Covenant have realized the potential themselves with dedicated units, including Jackals with large wooden shields who can charge and beat down the Chief, making them potentially more deadly than the literal Sniper Jackals appearing in the mod.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: At the beginning of the trailer for Cursed Halo Again, Inferno introduces the viewers to test_grunt2 and the Really Big Pistol and the former has this reaction when the latter is pulled out.
• Schmuck Bait: Several of the weapons are designed to troll the player, like the unmarked potions, but a special prize goes to the "Crash" Toolgun, which does exactly what its name says.
• Shout-Out:
  • The Ghost's new function and new identifier on the HUD is in loving reference to a certain streamer's utterance of the word.
    SPEEN
  • Similarly, Dante and Goku's inclusion as two of the "racists" in the Halo Kart levels is InfernoPlus poking fun at Vinny's unfamiliarity with the two characters and their respective franchises.
  • In version 3, one result of a D20 grenade is spawning a fully-drivable SOPHIA III.
• Smart Bomb: One of the possible effects of the D20 grenade is to play an extremely loud "OOF" sound accompanied by a brief flash on the screen, followed by everyone besides the player in an extremely large radius immediately dropping dead.
• Sore Loser: Played for Laughs. In the end of the Halo Kart set of levels, Chief fails to place first, second, or third place, opting to kill the winning contestants, a Grunt, Dante, and an Elite (who are teabagging) and claim first place.
• Spread Shot:
  • The M808B Scorpion is replaced with a "Quality Tank" which has two barrels pointed off at a 45-degree angle from each other. On the plus side, the coaxial machine gun is much more powerful.
  • The Blunderbuss is a replacement for the Shotgun that has a spread so large that the reticle appears on top of the model of the gun.
• Stealth Pun: One of the multiplayer maps, "Derelict" has been changed so all of its textures are a strange bumpy purple texture, and is cited as being a "very 'normal' map."^Explanation"Normal Maps" are off-coloured secondary textures that help give a stronger illusion of depth to a surface by telling the lighting engine to place shadows and highlights in a particular way in relation to the player's view and light sources within the map. The map's textures are all literally the normal maps for the basic map textures converted into the basic map textures.
• Unexpected Gameplay Change: At one point in the campaign, Master Chief needs to compete in a tourney of Halo Kart to activate the Ring's defence systems. In terms of actual gameplay, you merely have to race with the Hoglet against various characters as Sergeant Johnson (or your partner in co-op) provides gunner support.
• Unintentionally Unwinnable: Certain D20 grenade effects (particularly the ones that spawn either a whole forest of trees or a Buff Riku cutout) can permanently block off parts of a level the player needs to progress through if set off there, necessitating either a checkpoint reset or level restart.
• Visual Pun: One of the possible D20 grenade spawns is a platoon of Flood all carrying Super Soakers. That's right, the Flood bringing a literal flood with them.

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